Pakistan’s branch of the Taliban is trying to claim credit for the bomb scare that shut down Times Square on Saturday night, but U.S. officials and other experts say it’s highly unlikely the group had the ability to pull something like this off (even unsuccessfully). The Christian Science Monitor story notes that the Taliban falsely claimed credit for the shooting rampage in upstate New York last year (actually committed by a Vietnamese immigrant), and that NYC authorities are currently searching for a middle-aged white man spotted on a surveillance video fleeing the Manhattan crime scene.

In actual Pakistani terrorist news: the sole surviving gunman in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed more than 160 people (including a rabbi and other Jews at the city’s Chabad House), has just been convicted of “waging war against India, murder, conspiracy and other crimes.” The New York Times reports that Ajmal Kasab faces either the death penalty or life in prison; the court’s ruling is expected tomorrow.

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