For years it has been a weapon of choice in hot spots across the globe, from Iraq to Sri Lanka to Colombia: Cars or trucks loaded with explosives, detonated in busy markets, public squares and government buildings.
Since 9/11, both law enforcement officials and typical New Yorkers have worried and wondered ”” why not here? They were simpler propositions than hijacked planes, and they could, as a result, have an even more destabilizing effect on the city and its residents.
Saturday night, however crudely imagined and ultimately botched, the threat of a car bomb hit New York ”” brought home on a busy street off Times Square in the form of a smoking Nissan Pathfinder loaded with propane, gasoline, fireworks and bags of what the authorities described as nonexplosive fertilizer.