Failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad sentenced to life in prison

Failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad defiantly accepted his life prison sentence yesterday, telling U.S. District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum: “Brace yourselves, for the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me the first droplet of the flood that will follow.”

Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan who was living in Connecticut with his wife and two children, attempted to detonate a car bomb in bustling Times Square on May 1. The bomb, however, didn’t detonate.

Shahzad, 31, was captured two days later and pleaded guilty in June to 10 terrorism and weapons counts. He told officials that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the plot.

The former budget analyst said he was defending Muslims and retaliating against American attacks on civilians in the Mideast.

“If you call us terrorists, then we are proud terrorists ... and we will keep terrorizing you,” Shahzad said yesterday. “If I was given 1,000 lives, I would sacrifice them all for Allah.”
In imposing the mandatory life penalty, the judge noted Shahzad’s “total lack of remorse, his desire, if given the opportunity, to repeat the crime ... [and] his desire not just to defeat [Americans] … but to kill them.”