Smirking defiantly as a Manhattan federal judge sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison, the American-citizen terrorist who tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square vowed yesterday that "the defeat of [the] US is imminent."Smirking defiantly as a Manhattan federal judge sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison, the American-citizen terrorist who tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square vowed yesterday that "the defeat of [the] US is imminent."
In a 10-minute statement to the court that denounced post-9/11 foreign policy as it threatened future American bloodshed, Faisal Shahzad warned: "Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the blood that will follow me."
Invoking the names of Osama bin Laden and the medieval Muslim sultan Saladin, the 31-year-old Pakistani immigrant justified his evil plot in the name of Islam, insisting that "the Koran gives us the right to defend, and that's all I'm doing."
"We do not accept your democracy or your freedom because we already have Sharia [sacred Muslim] law and freedom . . . The past nine years, the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the US, except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam," he said.
"We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, honor and land. But if you call us terrorists for doing that, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace."
And although the coward's plot did not involve suicide, he said, "If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system."
Speaking without notes during an obviously well-rehearsed speech, Shahzad recalled the words of former President George W. Bush "when he started the war on us, on Muslims."
"He said, 'You are either with us or against us.' And so it's very clear for us Muslims, either we are with the mujahedeen or we are with crusading Jews and Christians," Shahzad said.
"There is no in between."
Shahzad also urged Americans to convert to Islam, "so that when you meet Allah on the day of resurrection, you will not be able to say nobody gave you the message."
Shahzad — who faced a mandatory life sentence after pleading guilty to all charges in the May 1 incident — greeted his punishment with a grin and repeated exclamations of "Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great."
After one exhortation, he raised his right hand and pointed his index finger toward the heavens.
Federal Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum — who imposed six consecutive life sentences and another 20 years to be served concurrently — said Shahzad deserved the harsh penalty, even though "happily, the training you sought in making bombs was unsuccessful and you were unsuccessful in your effort to kill many Americans."
As he did during his guilty plea — during which he declared himself a "mujahid," or Muslim soldier — Shahzad engaged in several exchanges with the judge.
"You are a young man, and you will have a lot of time to reflect on what you have done and what you have said today and in the past," Cedarbaum told him at one point.
Shahzad replied, "My sentence, if you allow me to speak, will be only for the limit that God has given me life in this world.
"But if you people don't become believers, the life that you would get in the hereafter, which you don't believe in, will be forever.
"So I'm happy with the deal that God has given me."
In response to Cedarbaum's questioning, the former Connecticut resident also told the judge that he "did not mean it" when he swore allegiance to America during a naturalization ceremony in April of last year.
And he denounced his homeland — where he returned late last year for terrorist training with the Pakistani Taliban — as a "slave country" that "has accepted the slavery of the West from the day it was born."
Shahzad is expected to serve out his sentence at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., which is also home to such terrorists as failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid, Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bomb attack.
Mayor Bloomberg said, "I'll leave it to the courts to decide what's an appropriate penalty, but there's no question what this guy was trying to do: He was trying to kill as many innocent human beings and destroy our society."