Official: Shahzad looked at other sites

NEW YORK – While sequestered in a New York hotel room, the Times Square bomb suspect revealed he had thought about targeting other landmarks and asked investigators why the bomb he built failed to go off, people familiar with the probe said Wednesday.

Faisal Shahzad said he considered attacking Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, the World Financial Center near ground zero and Sikorsky Inc. – a defense contractor with an office in his Connecticut hometown – before deciding to abandon an SUV rigged with a homemade bomb in Times Square on May 1, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.

A person familiar with the case said Wednesday that during more than two weeks of questioning, the Pakistani-American also expressed surprise that the device – a mishmash of fireworks, gasoline canisters, propane tanks and fertilizer – did not detonate.

The suspect said he thought the fireworks would trigger a chain reaction that would rupture the tanks and create a deadly fireball, the person said.

Shahzad, who authorities say has claimed he received explosives training in Pakistan, even asked interrogators to explain why the device failed.