A 30-year-old American immigrant from Pakistan was taken off a plane bound for Dubai late Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport and arrested in connection with a failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced. Authorities said Faisal Shahzad of Shelton, Conn., had paid cash for a Nissan Pathfinder that was found packed with explosives Saturday night on a tourist-crowded block in Midtown Manhattan. The vehicle was set ablaze but failed to detonate.

Officials located Shahzad after a sweeping two-day investigation that yielded what senior Obama administration officials described as a flood of international and domestic clues suggesting a plot involving more than one person.