Faisal Shahzad pleads guilty to attempting to bomb Times Square

The man suspected of attempting to bomb New York's Times Square pleaded guilty last night, saying he was "part of the answer to the US terrorising the Muslim nations and the Muslim people". US citizen Faisal Shahzad, 30, is charged with 10 separate terrorism and weapons counts, some of which carry mandatory life sentences, the US district court judge warned. He is accused of attempting to blow up a parked 4x4 vehicle packed with crude explosives on 1 May. The bomb did not detonate, but the subsequent evacuation caused huge disruption. He was arrested two days later on a plane bound for Dubai at New York's JFK airport. Shahzad, who was born in Pakistan but moved to the US as an 18-year-old, pleaded guilty to all charges and said he had actually attempted to detonate three separate devices in the Nissan Pathfinder. Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum asked Shahzad in court if he understood he might spend the rest of his life in prison, and whether he was sure he wanted to plead guilty. He said yes to both, adding he wanted "to plead guilty and 100 times more" to let the US know that if it did not withdraw from Muslim countries "we will be attacking US". According to the indictment issued last week, Shahzad received a total of $12,000 prior to the attack from the Pakistani Taliban through cash drop-offs in the US. He was accused in the indictment of receiving explosives training in Waziristan, Pakistan, during a trip to Pakistan in December 2009.