By Edith Honan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investigators questioned the suspected Times Square bomber hoping to uncover links he might have had to foreign militant groups, delaying his first appearance before a U.S. judge, possibly beyond Wednesday.
Faisal Shahzad, 30, who was born in Pakistan and became a U.S. citizen last year, is accused of trying to kill and maim people with a car bomb in the heart of Manhattan on Saturday night. Formally charged with five terrorism-related counts, he faces life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors say Shahzad, the son of a retired Pakistani vice air marshal, drove a crude homemade bomb of gasoline, propane gas, fireworks and fertilizer into Times Square and fled.
Authorities defused the bomb and later captured Shahzad, plucking him from an Emirates airline flight to Dubai on his way back to Pakistan, where prosecutors say he had received bomb-making training.
Shahzad had bought a ticket and boarded the plane on Monday evening despite having been put on a U.S. government "no-fly" list earlier in the day. On Wednesday, the Obama administration ordered airlines to step up their efforts to prevent people on the list from boarding flights.
Several of Shahzad's relatives were arrested in Pakistan after he was removed from the plane.
Shahzad, a former budget analyst who worked for a marketing firm in the U.S. state of Connecticut, came from a relatively privileged background that offered no hints of radicalism. Residents of his home village of Mohib Banda were in disbelief. One community leader who had met Shahzad said "we did not find any religious germ in him."
Court officials declined to say when Shahzad would appear before a magistrate judge. In the meantime, federal investigators questioned Shahzad and said he was cooperating with the probe both before and after he was advised of his right to remain silent.
Criminal suspects normally must appear before a judge within 48 hours of arrest but they can waive that right.
The issue has been at the heart of a political debate in the United States about whether suspects should be treated as enemy combatants or be afforded all the rights of people facing common criminal charges.
Federal investigators have claimed success in gathering information from suspects -- even after reading them their rights -- in recent cases such a Nigerian charged with attempting to blow up a Detroit-bound plane with a device hidden in his underwear, and an attempted New York City subway bomber.
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said late on Tuesday that Shahzad admitted trying to set off the bomb and training in a Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan.
"He's giving us significant information," Kelly told NY 1 television. "We want to learn as much as we can about him, we want to learn about the training, who gave the training, where did it happen."
ANOTHER THWARTED ATTACK
Kelly said it was the 11th thwarted attack on New York City since hijacked airliners destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers on September 11, 2001, killing more than 2,600 people.
President Barack Obama said the investigation would seek to determine whether Shahzad had any connection with foreign extremist groups.
The Taliban in Pakistan on Sunday claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing, saying it was planned to avenge the killing in April of al Qaeda's two top leaders in Iraq as well as U.S. involvement in Muslim countries.
While some U.S. officials were sceptical about the claim, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told CBS News he believed the failed attack was a retaliation for the United States targeting Taliban followers.
"This is a blow back. This is a reaction. This is retaliation," he said. "Let's not be naive. They're not going to sort of sit and welcome you to eliminate them. They're going to fight back. And we have to be ready for this fight."
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols and Daniel Trotta in New York; Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; and Zeeshan Haider in Mohib Banda, Pakistan; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Frances Kerry)
