Pa. fireworks store has video of NYC bomb suspect

NEW YORK (AP) — The suspect in the Times Square bombing attempt was caught on video at a Pennsylvania store legally buying consumer-grade fireworks that were made mostly of paper and were so weak they wouldn't blow up a watermelon, let alone an SUV, the company president said today.

Each of the 36 M88 fireworks bought by the suspect, Faisal Shahzad, at the Matamoras showroom near the New York border has pyrotechnic powder equal in size to less than a sixth of an aspirin, according to officials of Youngstown,Ohio-based Phantom Fireworks.

New Yorkers are lucky that the fireworks were bought legally, because illegal pyrotechnics can be up to 1,000 times more powerful, company president Bruce Zoldan told The Associated Press.

"There's no doubt, had he bought this on the black market, that the outcome in New York would have been totally different," Zoldan said.

Shahzad was charged Tuesday with trying to blow up a crude gasoline and propane device inside a parked SUV amid tourists and Broadway theatergoers.

He was in custody after being hauled off a Dubai-bound plane he boarded Monday night at Kennedy Airport despite being under surveillance and placed on the federal no-fly list.