Excerpts of statements made by Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad

Excerpts from Times Square bomb plot plea hearing

Excerpts of statements made by Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, according to a court transcript.

“I want to plead guilty and I’m going to plead guilty a hundred times over because until the hour the U.S. pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking U.S., and I plead guilty to that.”

“And when I came back on February 2nd, I started — started planning on the plan. So I started looking for a place first to rent and slowly got together what I think could make a bomb. During that time — it took me from February up to end of April to do all that, find a place. I also required some more cash and I requested that from the Taliban, and they sent it to me, twice, once in March and the other time in end of April. So I got the cash, I worked on it, I made the bomb in a car, and I drove it to Times Square, New York, on May 1st.”

“The bomb was — it was in three sections that I made the bomb. The major was the fertilizer bomb. That was in the trunk. It was in a cabinet, a gun cabinet. The second was — if that plan of the actual, that didn’t work, then the second would be the cylinder, the gas cylinders I had. And the third I had was a petrol, a gas to make fire in the car. But seems like none of those went off, and I don’t know the reason why they didn’t go off.”

“I would point out one thing in connection to the attack, that one has to understand where I’m coming from, because this is — I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier. The U.S. and the NATO forces, along with 40, 50 countries has attacked the Muslim lands.”

“The drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It’s a war, and in war, they kill people. They’re killing all Muslims.”

“I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attacks, because only — like living in U.S., the Americans only care about their people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die. Similarly, in Gaza Strip, somebody has to go and live with the family whose house is bulldozed by the Israeli bulldozer.”