Adil Najam

Pakistan-born and recently naturalized US-citizen Faisal Shahzad has been identified as and arrested for being the man behind the failed car bombing attempt in New York City.

The media in the US as well as in Pakistan is abuzz about him and information pours in so fast that it is very difficult to keep track of it. In these moments of information overload – when we know much and understand little – at least a few things should be clear to all and beyond dispute: the bombing attempted in New York City was heinous in intent and we should all be thankful that it was neither well-planned nor well-executed and the mayhem and murder that was intended was averted.

Authorities in Pakistan have done the right thing by assuring US authorities that they will cooperate fully in any investigation of this incident. Pakistanis in America should do the same. More than that, we need to be thinking about what happened here, and why. If, indeed, Faisal Shahzad was the man behind this attempted terror attack he may have (thankfully) caused no actual damage to New York City but he could deeply mutilate the reputation and self-confidence of the Pakistani community in the United States. One hopes that just as the citizens of New York did not let the car bomb blow up, Pakistanis in America will not let him destroy the self-confidence that this community has been so painstakingly reconstructing since the tragedy of 9/11.

Even as new information flows in and pieces of the puzzle get put in place there are going to be many important questions about exactly what happened when and how and why some of this does or does not fit into expected patterns. All of these are important – even critical – questions. But equally important – and critical – for Pakistanis in America is the need to begin understanding what all of this means for them, now and into the future. Let us not shy away from the tough questions that we need to ask ourselves. But let us also not be more tough on ourselves than we need to be. Let us work very hard to understand how someone from amongst us could even contemplate such a horrible act. But let us not let the horribleness of this contemplation lead to the condemnation of an entire community. Let us understand him for what he is accused of being: a criminal; let us condemn him for what is charged with having done: criminality; but let us not allow his alleged criminality with our own identity.

As one does all of this and navigates through the flood of information, here is a sampling of some important insights into who Faisal Shahzad is, excerpted from The New York Times:

Mr. Shahzad was born in Pakistan in 1979, though there is some confusion over where. Officials in Pakistan said it was in Nowshera, an area in northern Pakistan known for its Afghan refugee camps. But on a university application that Mr. Shahzad had filled out and that was found in the maggot-covered garbage outside the Shelton house on Tuesday, he listed Karachi. Pakistani officials said Mr. Shahzad was either a son or a grandson of Baharul Haq, who retired as a vice air marshal in 1992 and then joined the Civil Aviation Authority. A Pakistani official said Mr. Shahzad might have had affiliations with Ilyas Kashmiri, a militant linked to Al Qaeda who was formerly associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India militant group once nurtured by the Pakistani state. But friends said the family was well respected and nonpolitical. â€œNeither Faisal nor his family has ever had any links with any jihadist or religious organization,â€ one friend said. Another, a lawyer, said that â€œthe family is in a state of shock,â€ adding, â€œThey believe that their son has been implicated in a fake case.â€ Mr. Shahzad apparently went back and forth to Pakistan often, returning most recently in February after what he said was five months visiting his family, prosecutors said. A Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Mr. Shahzad had traveled with three passports, two from Pakistan and one from the United States; he last secured a Pakistani passport in 2000, describing his nationality as â€œKashmiri.â€ …According to immigration officials, Mr. Shahzad arrived in the United States on Jan. 16, 1999, less than a month after he had been granted a student visa, which requires a criminal background check. He had previously attended a program in Karachi affiliated with the now-defunct Southeastern University in Washington; a transcript from the spring of 1998, found in the garbage outside the Shelton house, showed that he got Dâ€™s in English composition and microeconomics, Bâ€™s in Introduction to Accounting and Introduction to Humanities, and a C in statistics. He enrolled at the University of Bridgeport, where he received a bachelorâ€™s degree in computer science and engineering in 2000, followed by a masterâ€™s in business administration in 2005. â€œIf this hadnâ€™t happened I would have long forgotten him,â€ said William Greenspan, Mr. Shahzadâ€™s adviser as an undergraduate. â€œThere are a lot of students you get to know; they call you up once in awhile to say hello, they got a nice job. After he left U.B., I never heard anything from him.â€ In January 2002 Mr. Shahzad obtained an H1B visa, a coveted status meant for highly skilled workers and good for three years, with a possible extension. Records show that Elizabeth Arden, the cosmetics giant, applied for a visa around that time for a job similar to the one he had there in 2001, arranged through a temporary employment agency called Accountants Inc., according to a timecard found in his trash. Officials at the cosmetics company refused to comment. In 2006, Mr. Shahzad took a job as a junior financial analyst at Affinion Group in Norwalk, a financial marketing services company. Michael Bush, the companyâ€™s director of public relations, said Mr. Shahzad resigned in mid-2009; government officials said he was unemployed and bankrupt by the time of his arrest. After his marriage, to Huma Mian, he petitioned the immigration agency in 2004 to change his status; he wanted to become a permanent resident, another step on the path to citizenship. Ms. Mian had just graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a business degree, according to Bronson Hilliard, a university spokesman. She lived in dormitories and in family housing, sharing her quarters with a sister or a cousin, Mr. Hilliard said. Her parents lived in the Denver suburb of Aurora. A neighbor in their condominium complex, Johnny Wright, remembered that her new husband had visited the family only once before she joined him. â€œHe seemed educated,â€ Mr. Wright said. â€œDidnâ€™t make a lot of conversation.â€

And, finally, a particularly well-reasoned reflection on Faisal Shahzad and what his case means to his adopted country; from Steve Coll in The New Yorker: