Shahzad's Path: Immigrant to Citizen to Terror Suspect

(May 5) -- A year ago, Faisal Shahzad seemed to be enjoying many of the familiar trappings of American life: a master's degree, a wife and two children, a home in the Connecticut suburbs and an entry-level job. But shortly after he was granted U.S. citizenship in 2009, his life took an ominous turn.

Today, Shahzad stands accused of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and other federal charges for allegedly driving a bomb-laden SUV into the heart of New York's bustling Times Square. Shahzad, 30, was arrested late Monday, pulled off a plane as he tried to leave the country.

He has admitted his involvement and told authorities he underwent explosives training in his native land, according to court documents. Shahzad, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in April of 2009, is providing evidence and intelligence to authorities as they try to determine if he worked alone or as part of a larger terrorist group, investigators said.

"The investigation is just beginning," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on NBC's "Today" show this morning. "He is cooperating. He is talking."

As Shahzad is held in federal custody, his route from immigrant to suburban dad to terrorism suspect came into focus, though his motivation for allegedly plotting to kill Americans in the heart of New York City a year after becoming a citizen remains a key unanswered question.

Born into a prominent Pakistani family in 1979, Pakistani officials say Shahzad is from the town of Nowshera. A university application found in the garbage outside his Connecticut home, however, said he was from Karachi, The New York Times reported. He is the son or grandson of a retired vice air marshal, Baharul Haq, the paper reported.

He had been in the United States for almost 12 years, first arriving when he was 19 after receiving a student visa, according to published reports.

Shahzad came to Washington, D.C., to attend the now-closed Southeastern University in the late 1990s. For the five semesters he was at the college, his grade-point average was 2.78, according to the Connecticut Post, which found some of his discarded papers outside a home in Shelton he used to own. He took mostly business classes and received an F in basic statistics.

The young student then headed north, transferring to the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. A Certificate of Eligibility for Non-immigrant Student Status, another document found outside his house, showed he was awarded $6,700 in grant money and that the balance of the $14,700 tuition bill was covered by family funds, the Connecticut Post reported.

He graduated in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in computer science and later returned to the university to earn a master's in business administration in 2005. He had received a visa for skilled workers in 2002, according to reports.

"He was personable, a nice guy, but unremarkable," William Greenspan, an adviser for undergraduate business students at the University of Bridgeport, told The Associated Press. "He would just come in and take the course as needed so he could graduate in a timely manner."

Another university official, Ward Thrasher, told NBC: "He was fairly unremarkable as a student. He didn't stand out in either a positive or negative fashion."

Shahzad married U.S. citizen Huma Mian, who graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and whose parents live in Denver. The couple bought a gray two-story home in Shelton, Conn., for $273,000 in 2004, and had children, a young boy and girl.

Shahzad took an entry-level job as a financial analyst in Connecticut with a marketing company, Affinion Group. He worked there from 2006 to 2009, when he quit for reasons that were unclear.
Neighbors described him as someone who was quiet and kept to himself. One neighbor, Brenda Thurman, said her daughter played with his. She thought it was odd that he liked to jog at night, wear black and shied away from the sunlight.

The real estate agent who handled the purchase of his house recalled that Shahzad was against former President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.

Igor Djuric said he was struck how outspoken Shahzad was considering they barely knew each other. "I don't know if he mentioned 9/11, but something like that Iraq has nothing to do with anything," Djuric told The Associated Press. Regarding Bush, Shahzad said "something to the effect of he doesn't know what he's doing and it's the wrong thing that he's doing."

The couple tried to sell the home four years later, but couldn't, the listing agent, Frank DelVecchio, told The Washington Post. Shahzad later e-mailed DelVecchio to tell him he had defaulted on their $200,000 mortgage, the Post said, and the house went into foreclosure. He is being sued by the bank, according to reports.

The couple abandoned the home, leaving behind many of their things.

"It was like they just picked up everything they wanted and just left one day," neighbor Davon Reid told the AP.

Shahzad told the real estate agent that he owed too much on the house and would be returning to Pakistan, AP said.

He had traveled with three passports, one from the United States and two from Pakistan, the Times reported, citing an unidentified Pakistani intelligence official, who added that the most recent Pakistani passport, from 2000, gave his nationality as Kashmiri.

Authorities say he returned to the United States earlier this year, when he rented a two-bedroom apartment in a poor neighborhood in Bridgeport. His wife and children are reportedly still in Pakistan. When he came back, he didn't try to reclaim any part of his past American life, the Post said.

The landlord said he saw Shahzad only to collect the rent, though he did recall seeing two bags of fertilizer Monday in the garage.

Shahzad had said he planned to grow tomatoes, the landlord, Stanislaw Chomiak, told the Times.

If he was a believer in Islam, worshipers at Bridgeport's main mosque didn't see it, telling the Post they didn't know him.

"I've never seen him," Sheik Hasan Abu-Mar, the mosque's imam, told the Post.