The alleged would-be Times Square terrorist was disowned by the Pakistani Taleban yesterday as American politicians called for him to be stripped of his US citizenship so he can be tried by a military tribunal.

Faisal Shahzad — nicknamed the “Idiot Bomber” for a series of blunders leading to his arrest — was praised by a spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban but disowned in the same breath. “We don’t even know him,” a spokesman said.

In New York, an Emirates jet was held on the runway at Kennedy airport for the second time in four days yesterday, amid reports that another “no fly” passenger had escaped detection and boarded the aircraft.

As the White House increased pressure on Islamabad to investigate possible links between Mr Shahzad and a range of militant groups based in Pakistan, new details emerged of his movements before the attempted bombing and of the lonely life in a cheap suburban flat that he was apparently attempting to escape.

Hours after Mr Shahzad allegedly left a Nissan on Times Square last Saturday night, the Pakistani Taleban appeared to claim responsibility for the failed attack in a video posted on YouTube.

Yesterday a spokesman for the group, Azam Tariq, told reporters in North Waziristan that “the job [Mr Shahzad] has done was a tremendous one and we praised him for this job but the fact is that we even do not know Faisal” (sic).

The spokesman claimed that his organisation had been framed for the attack. At the same time the Pakistani Ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, insisted that it was premature to link Mr Shahzad to Qari Hussain Mehsud, known as the Pakistani Taleban’s chief bomb-maker.

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