Who tried to car bomb Times Square in New York City last night?

There’s no indication yet behind who may have tried to explode a Nissan Pathfinder in New York City’s Times Square last night. Governor Paterson has called the attempt an act of terrorism, but no particular motivation has been alleged.

On the one hand, it could have been a terrorist who just hates the Lion King: The Musical. But there’s another serious possibility that shouldn’t be overlooked: the bomber may be someone who wanted to give Comedy Central and their corporate parent Viacom payback for a recent episode of South Park that satirized the subject of the censorious tendency of some Muslims to say that any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad is an affront to the Islamic faith. The New York Post points out that Viacom’s headquarters is close to the site of the bomb:

Also, the car was parked close to the headquarters of Viacom, which owns the Comedy Central cable network.

Comedy Central aired a recent controversial episode of the animated “South Park,” depicting the prophet Mohammed in a bear costume, drawing the ire of some extremists.

via Car bomb scare shuts down streets in Times Square – NYPOST.com.

Oh my god, they tried to blow up Kenny! You bastards!

The bomb was found near the headquarters of Viacom, the 'A' on the map. The company owns Comedy Central, which airs 'South Park'

Just to give you an idea, the A marks the spot of the location of Viacom HQ – right next to the Minskoff Theatre, which is hosting the Lion King musical right now. I guess investigators are going to need to go digging through Viacom’s voicemails to see if there are any threats, and also to check out of if anyone has been casing Viacom’s building in recent weeks.

There are some other key details we know about the failed bomber. For one, we know that he acquired license plates from a junkyard in Connecticut where they were taken off of another vehicle. Authorities will need to look into the question in particular of whether the plates were bought, or stolen. The Connecticut DMV states that when you are no longer using a vehicle, the plates are supposed to be returned to the state – not simply dumped in a junkyard. While the Times reports that the previous vehicle owner is not considered a suspect, whoever acquired the plates clearly had a very specific mission in mind when he acquired them. That suggests a certain level of sophistication in his planning, even if the bomb, made of propane canisters, gasoline cans, gunpowder, and timers, “looked amateurish” as Mayor Bloomberg stated.

The last thing we know is that the failed terrorist had some kind of gun locker in his vehicle. The New York Police Department is in possession of the container, and hopefully that will yield more clues.

One last bit of clue-age: Allahpundit over at Hot Air took note last night of attempts in London to set off a number of car bombs in London involving propane canisters. So it’s possible that there are poor instructions circulating out there over the jihadi underweb on how to build an incendiary car bomb.

Let’s hear it for our men and women in blue for responding quickly to the incident.