New York man charged for fake tip on terrorism threat

A New York man has been charged with lying to FBI agents about a fake terrorism plot in the United States, US authorities said on Friday.

Syed Omair Ali was charged with making false statements to the FBI between May and October about three individuals who he said had connections to militants in Pakistan and discussed possible targets in New York, according to an FBI affidavit.

One law enforcement official said Ali's false information in part sparked concerns by US intelligence officials that an operative for the Pakistani Taliban militant group had entered the United States to launch an attack as reported by Fox News on Thursday.

That group, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, funded and trained the Pakistani-born US citizen Faisal Shahzad, who tried but failed to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in New York in May. Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison last week.

US authorities have been on heightened alert since the Shahzad incident and the failed attempt by a Nigerian man to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear aboard a US airliner on Christmas Day last year.

The FBI said Ali admitted making up the information to get one of the individuals he named "in trouble due to a personal conflict" and the law enforcement official said authorities expended resources trying to track down the purported threat.