The NY Post reports:

There was no evidence of a Taliban link to a failed bomb found in a smoking SUV parked in Times Square, and police were on their way to Pennsylvania to talk to a man who said he may have recorded a bombing suspect in a nearby alley, the police commissioner said today.

The video apparently shows a white man in his 40s taking off his shirt underneath in the alley and putting it in a bag, Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

President Obama vowed to bring to justice the cowards behind the failed Times Square car bomb.

“We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people, to determine who is behind this potentially deadly act and to see that justice is done,” the president said.

The SUV contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, police said. Timers were connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks that were apparently intended to set the gas cans afire, then ignite the three barbecue-grill-sized propane tanks.

Kelly said it was “the intent of whoever did this to cause mayhem, create casualties.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the explosive device “amateurish” but potentially deadly, noting: “We are very lucky.”

“We avoided what could have been a very deadly event,” Bloomberg said. “It certainly could have exploded and had a pretty big fire and a decent amount of explosive impact.”

Police also found eight bags of an unknown substance in a gun locker that was in the smoking SUV, Kelly said. The substance “looks and feels” like fertilizer, he said, but tests were pending.

A group that monitors militant websites had said the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.

“Although a Taliban bomb maker has claimed on the Internet that the car bomb was placed in Times Square to avenge the death of mujahideen fighters, we have no evidence to support this claim,” Kelly said.

Connecticut license plates on the vehicle did not match up, and police had interviewed the Connecticut car owner, who told them he had sent the plates to a nearby junkyard, Bloomberg said.

(Source: NY Post / NY1)