“The surviving attacker revealed that New York City was next on their list of targets,” mayor Bloomberg told a news conference in the Blue Room at City Hall.
“We don’t know if we would have been able to stop the terrorists if they arrived here from Boston,” the mayor said. “We’re just thankful we didn’t have to find out that answer.”
The FBI informed city officials about the plot.
Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were armed with five pipe bombs and a pressure-cooker explosive like the two used in the Boston Marathon attack.
The duo intended to “detonate their remaining bombs” in the typically jam-packed midtown tourist mecca.
The Times Square scheme was hatched in the madness “after they shot and killed an officer in Cambridge” three days after the April 15 bombings.
The pair made a “spontaneous decision” to head south from New England, carjacking a Mercedes SUV and taking its owner hostage.
But the brothers noted the stolen car was low on gas, and stopped to refuel — only to have the vehicle’s owner escape and call police.
Tamerlan, 26, was killed in a wild firefight with authorities in Watertown, Mass., and Dzhokhar was arrested within the next 24 hours. Dzhokhar, 19, revealed the spur-of-the-moment plan in an interview with investigators from his Massachusetts hospital bed.
One day earlier, the terror suspect had claimed he and his brother only planned a trip to Manhattan so they could “party” in the aftermath of the killer blasts on Boylston St.
Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is seen with friends in Times Square
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