Federal authorities conducted raids in Boston, Long Island, and possibly more locations today as part of the investigation into the attempted terrorist attack on Times Square almost two weeks ago.  Fox News reports that two men of Pakistani descent have been arrested in Boston, although no one knows yet what their connections to the case may be:

Federal authorities have arrested two Pakistani men living in the Boston area in connection with the attempted Times Square bombing, Fox News has learned.

FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Thursday morning executed search warrants in “several locations in the Northeast,” a statement from ICE said.

At least one of the federal raids was in Watertown, Mass., a Boston suburb. Two search warrants related to the case were also executed on Long Island in New York.

The two may not have be in custody long, however, as they may have not known what Faisal Shahzad had in mind:

“We’re trying to figure out where [the main suspect] got money from, and these are potential sources of that money.”

But, the source said, the Boston-area men may have “unwittingly assisted in some capacity.” In fact, the source said, the main suspect in the case, 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad, may have duped the men into providing money, but authorities are not ruling out anything at this point.

The feds must be amazed that anyone connected to the plot is still in the US.  Ironically, one of the men detained has already been identified as Pirdad Khan, who should have been long gone after a 2002 order to leave the country for illegally entering the country, as well as “concealment of facts.”  The fact that he’s still here after seven and a half years will be an embarrassment to both the Bush and Obama administrations.  The other unidentified man will be charged with overstaying his visa, putting renewed focus on our broken visa-enforcement system — which Congress demanded to be fixed five years ago.

The raids make clear that the Obama administration have abandoned the idea that Shahzad was a “lone wolf” terrorist and instead participated in a cell of some kind in a terrorist network.  The arrest of Khan should have the national security agencies combing through their records to see who else hasn’t complied with an order to leave the US.