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Faisal Shahzad, son of a retired Pakistani Air Vice Marshal, has admitted to attending a terrorist training camp in restive Waziristan before his failed bid to explode a car bomb at the Times Square in New York.
30-year-old Shahzad, a naturalised American citizen, will be charged with an act of terrorism, even as seven people were detained in Pakistan for alleged links to him.
A day after arresting him from the New York's John F Kennedy Airport when he was trying to flee the country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Shahzad confessed he had attempted to detonate a bomb at Times Square.
Shahzad also told the FBI that he received bomb-making training at a terror camp in Waziristan, a lawless tribal region where the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups operate with near impunity.
Pakistani chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said in Islamabad that Shahzad comes from a "well to-do" family and that his father was a former air force officer.
Shahzad's training in Waziristan raised the possibility of a coordinated international plot for an attack.
In a 10-page complaint filed yesterday before the Court of Judge Nathaniel Fox, Southern District of New York, the FBI alleged Shahzad travelled from Connecticut to New York on a sports-utility vehicle (SUV) that was laden with a bomb.
US Attorney General Eric Holder said Shahzad would be charged with an act of terrorism and that he is cooperating with investigators and providing useful details.