Suspected terrorist admits to it

From CBS 2:

A court hearing was canceled Tuesday in part because of Shahzad's continuing cooperation with investigators, but authorities said they had shed little light on what might have motivated him.

Until recently, his life in the U.S. appeared enviable. He had a master's degree from the University of Bridgeport, Conn., a job as a budget analyst for a marketing firm in Norwalk, Conn., two children and a well-educated wife who posted his smiling picture and lovingly called him "my everything" on a social networking website.

But shortly after becoming a U.S. citizen a year ago, he gave up his job, stopped paying his mortgage and told a real estate agent to let the bank take the house because he was returning to Pakistan.

Once there, according to investigators, he traveled to the lawless Waziristan region and learned bomb making at a terrorist training camp.

In court papers, investigators said Shahzad returned to the U.S. on Feb. 3, moved into an apartment in a low-rent section of Bridgeport, then set about acquiring materials and an SUV he bought with cash in late April. They said that after his arrest, Shahzad confessed to rigging the bomb and driving it into Times Square. He also acknowledged getting training in Pakistan, the filing said.

Kifyat Ali, a cousin of Shahzad's father, spoke with reporters outside a two-story home the family owns in an upscale part of Peshawar, Pakistan. He said the family had yet to be officially informed of Shahzad's arrest, which he called ``a conspiracy so the (Americans) can bomb more Pashtuns,'' a reference to a major ethnic group in Peshawar and the nearby tribal areas of Pakistan and southwest Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the Times Square car bomb plot, but U.S. officials said they are still investigating. Federal authorities are looking into possible financing of Shahzad's activities by the group, according to one of the law enforcement officials who spoke to the AP.

In Pakistan, authorities detained several people, although the FBI said it had no confirmation that those arrests were relevant to the case.

Shahzad came to the U.S. in late 1998 on a student visa. Not long after earning his MBA, he took a job at the Affinion Group, which does brand-loyalty marketing, and stayed there until leaving voluntarily in May 2009, a company spokesman said.

His path to citizenship was eased by his marriage to an American, Huma Mian.