Details Emerge About 3 Men Detained in Bomb Case

Details Emerge About 3 Men Detained in Bomb Case
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: May 14, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/nyregion/15terror.html?hpw


The three Pakistani men detained by federal authorities who are investigating the failed Times Square car bombing came from varied backgrounds: one was a computer programmer, one a gas station attendant and one a cabdriver.

The men were taken into custody on Thursday as Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and the local police executed search warrants on Long Island, in the suburbs of Boston and in New Jersey, as part of an effort to track the financing that bankrolled the unsuccessful attack, officials have said.

They have not been charged in connection with any crime, but on Friday were still being held on administrative violations by federal immigration authorities.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday that investigators believed the three men had provided money to the naturalized Pakistani immigrant who admitted driving a sport utility vehicle packed with a crude bomb to Times Square. But he said it was unclear if they knew the funds were going to be used for an act of terrorism.

One of the three men, Mohammad Shafiq Rahman, a computer programmer who was taken into custody in Portland, Me., told his employer days earlier that he knew the accused would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, but had not seen him in nearly a decade.

The connections between the other two men, Pir Khan, 43, who until recently drove a cab in the Boston area, and Aftab Khan, who was in his 20s and worked in a gas station in Brookline, and Mr. Shahzad were unclear.

Mr. Rahman’s employer, Larry Adlerstein, owner of Artist & Craftsman Supply in Portland, said he was shocked that the authorities were interested in his employee.

Mr. Adlerstein said he had asked his employee how he felt about all the negative news about his native land.

Mr. Adlerstein recalled Mr. Rahman’s saying, “ ‘It’s hard. As a matter of fact I happen to know the guy accused of being the bomber in Times Square. I haven’t seen him for eight or nine years, but back then he was a pretty simple person, had no dogma, no theory, just went with the flow.’ ”

He said that Mr. Rahman added, “ ‘So it’s hard for me to understand this, but maybe that’s what they look for, what terrorist organizations look for.’ ”

Mr. Adlerstein said he hired Mr. Rahman about eight or nine months ago to work as a computer programmer, after Mr. Rahman answered Mr. Adlerstein’s Craigslist employment advertisement.

Pir Khan, a taxi driver, recently sold his medallion, said Pir Khan’s brother-in-law, Fida Muhammed. (Pir Khan and Aftab Khan are not related.)

Pir Khan would often go to New York to pick up friends who recently arrived from Pakistan and would drive them back to the Boston area, Mr. Muhammed said.

Mr. Muhammed said that Aftab Khan was engaged to an American soldier he met on a base in Kuwait and that they recently broke up.

Katie Zezima contributed reporting from Boston, and Karen Zraick from Long Island.