Times Square Bomb 'Amateurish' but Troubling

(May 3) -- With no solid information available yet about the "who" or "why" of this past weekend's Times Square scare, the discussion online has focused on the "what" -- the crude bomb itself.

Street vendors called police Saturday evening when they saw smoke coming from a Nissan Pathfinder that had been left idling on the street. In the back of the SUV were three propane tanks like the ones for a backyard grill, two five-gallon containers of gasoline, eight bags of fertilizer in a gun locker and a detonation device rigged with battery-powered clocks, wires and M-88 firecrackers, according to police.

Newsweek's Mark Hosenball reported that authorities immediately feared the explosive device might be part of a broader terrorist attack. But the next morning, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was on "Fox News Sunday" calling it an "amateurish type of bomb" and saying the attempted attack appeared to be an isolated incident. She tweaked her language a bit on NBC's "Today" show Monday as she warned against making "premature" judgments about whether this was the result of a terrorist organization's plot.

Speculation was fueled by the Pakistan Taliban's claim that it was behind the bombing attempt. Authorities have dismissed that possibility, as well as the suggestion by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., that it might have been revenge for a recent episode of "South Park" that angered Muslim extremists.

"Rushing to take credit for a bungled attack is fairly pathetic," said The New Republic's Jonathan Chait. And while Michelle Malkin took a shot at the Homeland Security chief (Will Janet Clownitano stop calling others "amateurish?"), another conservative blogger ridiculed the attack as "the work of a bona fide amateur." Noting that the fertilizer wasn't explosive, Hot Air's Allahpundit asked, "What kind of moron bomber would go to the lengths this guy went to without making sure that the stuff he's got actually goes boom?"

Balloon Juice blogger "mistermix" -- drawing on the lessons of his own "misspent youth" -- said whoever built the bomb "lacked the experience of a 10-year-old boy" who knows M-88's aren't really very powerful and it's nearly impossible (as the Mythbusters recently proved) to make a propane cylinder explode in a fire. And The New Yorker's Steve Coll said the "Dr. Seuss-inspired contraption ... suggests someone who tried to go to school on the Internet but didn't have the patience to complete too many classes."

Still, it's the bomber's intent, not competence, that makes this incident so troubling.

"A terrorist act doesn't necessarily have to be conducted by an organization. An individual can do it on their own," said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Police said the device could have caused a large fireball and even killed people near the SUV. And the simple, easy-to-get ingredients made the attempted bombing "relatively easy to execute and nearly impossible to detect," according to The Washington Post.

"'Unsophisticated' can still cause a lot of pain and misery," one counterterrorism official told the Post.