New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday called for more funds to help battle terror attacks on his city, just days after a foiled car bombing in its central Times Square.
"Since 1990, there have been more than 20 terrorist plots -- or actual attacks -- against our city," Bloomberg told US lawmakers.
"That's why it's so critical for Congress to fully fund Homeland Security programs like 'Securing the Cities' initiative -- and to take other steps that will help us fight terrorists and make it harder for them to attack us."
He was referring to a program set up to help the Homeland Security department protect major US cities from attack.
Wednesday's hearing at the Senate had been planned before Saturday's attempted car bombing in New York, which was also the scene of the September 11, 2001 attacks when the World Trade Center was destroyed.
A Pakistani-American, Faisal Shahzad, 30, tracked down within hours of parking a bomb-laden car on Broadway has been charged in the plot.
Senator Joe Lieberman told the committee examining a bill to stop people on a terror watch list from buying guns that: "Times Square should remind us of a reality that we tend to forget: Islamists attack."
"We are simply not doing all we can to stop terrorists from buying firearms," he warned.
Bloomberg said he supported the bill, quoting figures from a US government report that said that from February 2004 to February 2010, 1,228 people listed on an FBI terror watchlist had tried to buy weapons. About 90 percent, some 1,119, had succeeded.
Meanwhile, New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly told journalists that luck and good police work combined to help them track down Shahzad so quickly.
"We were lucky and it was good police work, I think it was a combination of both," said Kelly, who also testified to the committee.
"No investigation ever goes perfectly, you go in different directions, you can spend a lot of efforts in one area and it doesn't pay off," Bloomberg told the committee.
"But the fact that this investigation from start to finish took 53 hours, I think it is remarkable."
Copyright 2010  AFP American Edition
