NPR has learned that authorities have identified the buyer of the SUV used in the Times Square bombing attempt over the weekend and are seeking him as a potential suspect.
Two officials familiar with the case say the possible suspect is a man of Pakistani descent, in his 20s or 30s, who recently returned from several months in Pakistan. He is a Connecticut resident and a naturalized citizen.
Three weeks ago, he bought the 13-year-old car on Craigslist from another Connecticut man. He paid cash for the vehicle and never filed any of the paperwork necessary to register it.
The 1993 Nissan Pathfinder was filled with gasoline canisters, propane tanks, fireworks and a gun locker that appears to have been filled with fertilizer. The car was supposed to blow up, injuring anyone who might have been passing by at the time.
Earlier, law enforcement officials said they suspected that several people were involved in the failed attack -- and that they likely were getting orders from abroad.
NPR and other news outlets reported that evidence collected so far indicates a foreign connection in a failed attack that could have produced what officials called "a significant fireball" that would have sprayed shrapnel and metal parts down one of the busiest streets in the country.
The Pakistani Taliban appeared to claim responsibility for the car bomb in three videos that surfaced after the weekend scare, monitoring groups said. New York officials said they have no evidence to support the claim, but they were not ruling out a connection.
New York City police released a photograph of the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder used in the failed attack crossing an intersection at 6:28 p.m. ET Saturday. Two minutes later, two street vendors flagged down a police officer after noticing smoke coming out of the vehicle, which was parked on West 45th Street.
Attorney General Eric Holder said investigators were making "substantial progress" as they continued to pursue hundreds of leads suggested by the design of the bomb, the vehicle and numerous videos taken by cameras operated by the city and area businesses.
Law enforcement officials were following two lines of investigation involving the Nissan Pathfinder: who owned the SUV, and who owned the license plates on the vehicle.
Although the vehicle identification number had been erased from the Pathfinder's dashboard, police tracked down the registered owner from the VIN stamped on the axle and engine. Officials said the registered owner was interviewed and is not considered a suspect.
But they are continuing to search for the last known owner of the license plate that was taken from another vehicle and put on the Pathfinder. The license plate belonged to a Ford F-150 truck that was traced to a Stratford, Conn., junkyard. Investigators said the truck's owner told them he sold the truck to an auto parts business.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs characterized the attempted bombing as terrorism at a Monday briefing.
"I think anybody that has the type of material that they had in a car in Times Square, I would say that ... was intended to terrorize, absolutely. And I would say that whoever did that would be categorized as a terrorist, yes," Gibbs said.
On Monday, New York City police were reviewing "hundreds of hours" of video taken from surveillance cameras in and around Times Square as they intensified efforts to identify a man videotaped shedding his shirt near where the explosives-packed SUV was found.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said detectives were following up on numerous leads, examining the design of the failed bomb and identifying possible suspects or witnesses from videotapes as they searched for who left the SUV parked on one of the nation's busiest streets Saturday.
"There's lots of cameras in that area of New York City, so, there's a lot of investigatory work going on right now," Napolitano told CNN during an interview.
News media across the country carried video and still photos of the man who was picked up on surveillance video removing a dark-colored shirt to reveal a red shirt underneath. He then stuffed the dark shirt into a bag. Police said the man -- described as white and in his 40s -- was walking away from an area where the vehicle was parked.
Napolitano said law enforcement officers are looking for the man, who could be either a witness or a suspect.
"We don't know. It would be premature to suggest that we do know. What we would like to do is to be able to identify him and then speak with him," she said.
Detectives flew to Pennsylvania on Monday to review video shot by a tourist for relevant information. Late Monday, they were evaluating the tape to determine if it should be made public.
The attempted bombing Saturday shut down Times Square for about 10 hours.
This report includes material from NPR staff and The Associated Press.
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