New York:-New York City's police commissioner Monday said there was no evidence of a Taliban link to a failed bomb found in an SUV parked in Times Square early Sunday. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attempted car bomb attack in New York's Times Square, a statement on an Islamist website said on Sunday. "The Pakistani Taliban announced its responsibility for the New York attack in revenge for the two leaders AlBaghdadi and AlMuhajir and Muslim martyrs," said a statement on a website commonly used by Islamists. Al Qaeda's Iraq leader Abu Ayyub AlMasri - also known as Abu Hamza AlMuhajir - and Abu Omar AlBaghdadi, the purported head of its local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, were killed last month. US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Sunday that the car bomb defused in New York's Times Square might have been a terrorist attack. Officials held off identifying who might be responsible for the crude device, made of propane, gasoline, and fireworks. The car bomb was defused in Times Square on Saturday evening. Police found it in a sport utility vehicle when the area was packed with tourists and theatre-goers. The Pakistani Taliban, mostly ethnic Pashtuns from northwestern regions on Pakistan's Afghan border, support the Afghan Taliban who are also mainly of Pashtun descent. Many in the Afghan Taliban fled to Pakistani Pashtun lands after US-led forces ousted Afghanistan's hardline Taliban government in 2001. The Islamist website (http://www.muslm.net/vb/showthread.php?t=387309) said that Qari Hussain Mehsud, known as the master mentor of Taliban suicide bombers, accepted responsibility for the failed attack "with great pride and utmost bravery".
