TIMES SQUARE UPDATE – AT 7:48 P.M. ET:  When I was in journalism, it was a rule of thumb that you got better information from the New York Police Department than from the FBI.  NYPD was considered more advanced and less political.  With all respect to some of the fine work done by the FBI, and it is fine indeed, I listen a bit more carefully when New York's police commissioner, Ray Kelly, speaks.

Kelly has given an update on the Times Square bomber:

The suspected driver in a failed car bombing of Times Square fits the profile of a recent wave "homegrown" terrorists threatening America, New York police officials warned Tuesday.

The officials said Faisal Shahzad and other suspects like Najibullah Zazi - the admitted leader of a plot to bomb the New York subway system - had roots in working- or middle-class society, some college education and no previous criminal records, but became radicalized in part by traveling to overseas terrorist hotbeds.

Notice that they were not the impoverished "oppressed" sad saps often portrayed by the tale spinners of the left.

The Times Square threat was "a classic case of homegrown terrorism," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a briefing for private security executives.

And...

New York Police Department analyst Mitch Silber said that along with foreign travel, homegrown terrorists typically fall under the spell of extremist, anti-American literature and rhetoric found on the Internet or elsewhere.

Among the items found in Shahzad's home was a version of the Quran known for its "violent interpretation" of jihad, Silber said.

What!  Are they saying that ideology has something to do with this.  You mean it isn't Israeli apartments in Jerusalem? 

Kelly told reporters after the briefing that Shahzad still hadn't appeared in court on Tuesday because he was continuing to provide information in an ongoing investigation. He declined to say whether authorities were seeking other suspects.

A little different from the "lone wolf" garbage handed out in the first days after the failed attack. 

COMMENT:  As we noted in a previous post, military analyst Ralph Peters has detected a more serious take on terrorism from the Obama administration since the Times Square event.  Maybe there is learning going on.  I get the sense that Ray Kelly had it correct from the start.

May 10, 2010