near future."

Mr. Shahzad, 31 years old, is one of a number of home-grown U.S. terrorists who have surfaced over the past two years in a growing challenge for law-enforcement officials. In June, he pleaded guilty to a 10-count indictment, including charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting an act of terrorism.

Dressed in blue prison garb with white prayer cap, Mr. Shahzad was led in handcuffs into a federal courtroom in Manhattan, where he spent more than five minutes railing against the U.S. He said he was prepared, if given 1,000 lives, to "sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah."

From the Archive

"We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, honor and land," Mr. Shahzad told U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum.smoking Nissan Pathfinder was found parked in Times Square on May 1. Inside the vehicle, the New York Police Department bomb squad found several bags of fertilizer, two red five-gallon gasoline canisters, 152 M-88 fireworks, three propane gas canisters and two alarm clocks connected to wires.

Mr. Shahzad told authorities after his arrest that he had planned to detonate a second bomb in New York two weeks later if he wasn't in custody, according to prosecutors.

In a sentencing letter last week, prosecutors said Mr. Shahzad accessed websites that provided real-time video of the crowds in Times Square in the weeks prior to the attack "as part of his effort to maximize the deadly effect of his bomb."

Terror on the Stand

Some of the notable cases brought by the U.S.

Umar Farouk