Investigators Search Shahzad Homes in Bridgeport, Shelton

Authorities have been in Bridgeport since Monday night, searching what neighbors say is an apartment on Sheridan Street. As of Tuesday afternoon, the road was still blocked off.

The apartment is one of two where Faisal Shahzad, a suspect in the New York bomb scare, has lived in Connecticut. His neighbors were evacuated and sent to the high school, but were able to return on Tuesday,

Shahzad used to live in a two-story grayish-brown Colonial in a working-class neighborhood in Shelton. On Tuesday morning, the home looked as if it had been unoccupied for a while, with grass growing in the driveway and bags of garbage lying about. Neighbors say he hasn't lived there for several months.

Court records indicate that the home was under foreclosure.

Brenda Thurman, 37, a neighbor, said he lived there with his wife and two small children until last year. Shahzad had told Thurman's husband that he worked on Wall Street, she said.

"He was a little bit strange," she said. "He didn't like to come out during the day."

Neighbors of Shahzad’s Bridgeport apartment said they have seen investigators walk out of the apartment with several plastic bags.

A bomb squad came and went without entering as local police and FBI agents gathered in the cordoned-off street.

Shahzad was being held in New York overnight and couldn't be contacted, according to the Associated Press. A phone number at a listed address for Shahzad in Shelton, Conn., wasn't in service.

Shahzad, 30, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into the failed car bombing.

Shahzad is under arrest for the failed bombing. Attorney General Eric Holder says Shahzad is talking to investigators and has provided valuable information. Holder described the failed bombing as a very serious terrorist plot intended to kill Americans.

He will face terrorism and weapons of mass destruction charges

Law enforcement officials say Shahzad bought the SUV, a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder, from a college student from Bridgeport and paid cash.

The vehicle identification number had been removed from the Pathfinder's dashboard, but it was stamped on the engine, and investigators used it to find the owner of record, who told them he had sold the vehicle to a stranger.

As the SUV buyer came into focus, investigators backed off other leads, although Holder said U.S. authorities "will not rest until we have brought everyone responsible to justice," suggesting additional suspects are being sought.

The Pakistani Taliban appeared to claim responsibility in videos that surfaced after the weekend scare, monitoring groups said, but police had no evidence to support the claims.

More than a dozen people with American citizenship or residency, like Shahzad, have been accused in the past two years of supporting or carrying out terrorism attempts on U.S. soil, cases that illustrate the threat of violent extremism from within the U.S.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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