New York police said Times Square car bomb ”similar” to one used in Glasgow raid

New York, May 3 (ANI): New York investigators are reviewing similarities between the failed bomb attack in Times Square this weekend and the 2007 attempted suicide bombing on Glasgow airport.

According to The Scotsman, the crude and powerful car bomb was found in a vehicle loaded with gas cylinders and full cans of fuel, a method that was used in the unsuccessful attack on Glasgow airport in June 2007.

Two vehicles believed to have been abandoned in London”s clubland by the Glasgow attackers, Bilal Abdullah and Kafeel Ahmed, were also filled with gas canisters and fuel containers.

New York investigators said such a method of attack has its roots in the Iraqi insurgency.

Police said last night that they had video footage of a possible suspect shedding clothing in an alley and putting it in a bag. They also found a substance that resembled fertiliser in the sports utility vehicle parked in the major tourist destination.

The surveillance video shows a white man in his forties taking off one shirt, revealing another underneath.

Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the New York Police Department”s chief spokesman, said: “You can find similarities among different attacks, but there is nothing that we have at this point that has established that link.”

He noted that the Glasgow and London incidents stood out among the others the department was reviewing.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said officials were treating the incident as a potential terrorist attack. (ANI)

Arrest warrants requested for Somali pirates in German ship attack

Berlin – German prosecutors applied Tuesday for arrest warrants for seven Somali pirates who attack a German naval vessel in the Gulf of Aden last month.

The group is on board a German frigate due to tie up in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Wednesday.

Justice officials said the move was necessary, otherwise the suspects would have to have been freed when the frigate Rheinland-Pfalz docks.

A German air force plane and 40 policemen were standing by to fly to Kenya to pick up the pirates if the Kenyan government refuses to accept them and put them on trial.

Under a deal with the European Union, Kenya has pledged to try pirates detained by EU warships for attacks on merchant shipping off the Somalia coast.

It is unclear whether the arrangement applies to attacks on warships. The pirates currently on the German frigate were detained over a week ago after an unsuccessful attack on the navy oil tanker Spessart.

On March 9, Germany handed over to Kenya nine pirates captured off Somalia after another botched attack, this time on a German freighter.

Piracy has started to pick up again off Somalia in recent weeks following a lull of several months.

Pirates in 2008 seized dozens of ships and earned tens of millions of dollars in ransom, prompting the international community to send in warships to the region. (dpa)