Times Square plot probe widens to New Jersey

The Times Square bomb-plot investigation broadened Thursday as counterterrorism agents searched a Camden business, a Cherry Hill condo, and sites near Boston and New York City.

A law enforcement source said the agents were tracing financial connections to Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistan-born U.S. citizen charged in the failed May 1 terror attack.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that two Pakistani men detained in Massachusetts may have provided funds for Shahzad.

"These searches are the product of evidence that has been gathered in the investigation [of] the attempted Times Square bombing and do not relate to any known immediate threat to the public or active plot against the United States," Holder said.

In South Jersey, FBI agents quizzed two brothers of Pakistani origin. One brother said agents asked about the family printing business and customers but did not ask direct questions about the Times Square case.

Agents in South Jersey carted away computers and financial records, sources said.

There were no arrests locally, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained three other Pakistani men, two in Boston and one in Maine.

FBI agents searched a home in Watertown, Mass., and a gas station in Brookline, Mass., an FBI spokeswoman said. A similar search was conducted on Long Island.

The raids in the Northeast came as Shahzad, the Pakistani native caught as he tried to flee the country, continued to cooperate with the FBI, federal officials said.

Shahzad is charged with driving an SUV filled with explosives and fertilizer to Times Square on May 1, a Saturday evening, and trying to detonate the device by timer. Shahzad, who lived in suburban Connecticut, allegedly told the FBI that he was angry at the United States for its use of Predator drone missiles against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.

On Thursday, Holder repeated his assertion that the Times Square plot was the work of the Taliban in Pakistan.

"We will use every resource available to make sure that anyone found responsible, whether they be in the United States or overseas, is held accountable," Holder told the House Judiciary Committee.

In New York, President Obama made an unscheduled stop at a counterterrorism command center to praise the officers and agents who helped catch Shahzad so quickly.

"Look, I know folks are busy, but I just wanted to come by and say thank you," Obama said. "I don't think I need to tell you that given the potential for attack everywhere in the country, we've got a lot to learn from what is taking place here."

Officials were tight-lipped about the early-morning raids in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York.

In South Jersey, FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver confirmed that agents searched two locations Thursday - a printing business in Camden and a Cherry Hill condominium.

Klaver declined to comment further because the search warrant is sealed.

The Cherry Hill condo is in the 500 block of Park Drive, not far from the intersection of Marlton Pike and Kings Highway South, near the old Garden State racetrack.

Muhammad Fiaez, 37, said that at 6 a.m., agents knocked on the door of the unit he shares with his brother, Iqbal Hinjhara, 49. Both men were born in Pakistan.

The FBI agents, Fiaez said, questioned them separately. Agents asked how long they had lived in the United States and what they were doing here.

Fiaez said he has lived in the United States for about 10 years and in the second-floor apartment for about four months. They are renters, records show.

Fiaez said he works with Hinjhara at a business in Camden that sells printing machines. The business ships to India, Europe, and Pakistan, he said.

After an hour of questioning, Fiaez said the FBI agents returned his identification papers. He said they told him, "You are clear."

Fiaez, who speaks in heavily accented English, said, "Nobody asked me about Times Square."

Asked why the FBI searched his home, he said: "I don't know."

Of the FBI agent who questioned him, Fiaez said he held no ill will. "That's his job, you know."

The Camden business searched Thursday is a squat beige industrial building across from a park in the city's Cramer Hill section.

The building was once occupied by Prompt Press, which printed publications for national organizations such as the Consumer Education and Protective Association and the Communist Party USA.

Hinjhara bought the property in September for $237,000, records show. His company is called M.Y. Printing Equipment. He could not be reached for comment.

The pastor at the Pentecostal church next door, the Rev. Roberto Lopez, said the new owners of the building moved in about six months ago.

"They pulled out the old printing press, and then one day they brought in a new one," Lopez said. "I never heard the machines running. But my friend talked with [one of them], and he explained they were a warehouse."

Wilfredo Rivera, a parishioner, said of the printing-press plant's employees: "They're quiet people. They come and go and don't like to talk to anybody."

Neighbors said they saw trucks coming and going often late into the night.

"On Friday nights, I would see them pulling up around 10, 11 o'clock," said Aelec Ramos, who lives nearby.

The building is on the east side of Von Nieda Park, and the swarm of media standing outside drew quizzical glances from passing residents Thursday afternoon.

William Weiksnar, a pastor at St. Anthony of Padua Church across the park, said he often walks his dogs past the building.

He recently looked inside through the open door of one of the building's two loading bays.

"It looked like it was mostly empty," he said.

Luz Duran, a teacher's assistant at the school run by St. Anthony's, said she had seen a car parked on the other side of the park from the building for five hours Wednesday.

"Maybe they were watching the building," she said.

Investigators searched a printing-press warehouse in Camden and a Cherry Hill condo, below, as well as sites in New England and New York, right.