Bomb suspect held as flight halted

Pakistan-born US citizen Faisal Shahzad had booked his seat on the Dubai-bound plane as he travelled to New York's Kennedy airport and paid in cash.

Yesterday as he waited to make his first appearance in court he was said to have told detectives he was acting alone when he parked a makeshift car bomb in Times Square in the heart of a Manhattan on Saturday evening.

But US President Barack Obama said he was being checked for possible connection to terrorist groups.

Shahzad was removed from the Emirates flight after air traffic control ordered it to return shortly before take-off yesterday. He had been due to catch a Pakistan-bound flight from Dubai.

Shahzad became a naturalised US citizen last year shortly before travelling to Pakistan, where he had a wife, a security source said.

He was not known to US intelligence before the Times Square incident.

Speaking hours after the arrest, President Obama said "justice will be done" in the incident.

The President said "hundreds of lives" may have been saved through quick action by ordinary citizens and local, state and federal authorities.

He said that the aim of those who try to carry out attacks like the one at the weekend was to force Americans to live in fear.

But President Obama said: "As Americans and as a nation, we will not be terrorised. We will not cower in fear. We will not be intimidated."

Meanwhile police and the FBI searched Shahzad's home in a working-class district of multi-family homes in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Court records showed he defaulted on a $200,000 mortgage on the house and was sued by the loan company last September to foreclose on him. The records showed Shahzad took out the mortgage in 2004, and he co-owned the home with a woman named Huma Mian.

Shahzad bought the car used in the attempted attack, a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder, from a Connecticut man about three weeks ago and paid cash.

The vehicle identification number had been removed from the dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine, and investigators used it to find the previous owner, who told them he had sold it to a stranger.

The explosive device inside it had cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a can filled with fireworks, which were apparently intended to detonate petrol cans and set propane tanks on fire.

A metal rifle cabinet placed in the car's cargo area was packed with fertiliser, but US bomb experts believe it was not a type volatile enough to explode like the ammonium nitrate grade fertiliser used in previous terrorist bombings.

Police said the bomb could have produced "a significant fireball".

A passer-by alerted police to the car, which was smoking. Times Square, clogged with tourists on a warm evening, was shut down for 10 hours. A bomb squad dismantled the explosive device and no one was hurt.

US Attorney General Eric Holder suggested the hunt was still on for others involved.

Pakistan authorities have held several people in connection with the bombing attempt.

One of the men, identified as Tauseef, was a friend of Shahzad in Karachi. Others arrested are said to be relatives and no charges had been filed so far.