‘They yearn to attack NEW YORK CITY’
DAMAGE WAS MINIMAL, THE FREQUENCY ISN’T
NEW YORK • The pipe bomb was crude, attached to the attacker by Velcro and plastic ties, and the damage minimal — three people suffered minor injuries and even the wouldbe suicide bomber survived.
But once again, it was New York City that was the target of a terrorist attack.
Monday’s explosion underscored the difficulty of protecting a city of 8.5 million, America’s largest, while officials also acknowledged that New York City would always be a target.
“This was an attempted terrorist attack,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Thank God the perpetrator did not achieve his ultimate goals.
“The choice of New York is always for a reason because we’re a beacon to the world and we actually show that a society of many faiths and many backgrounds can work and we show that democracy can work and our enemies want to undermine that and the terrorists want to undermine that so they yearn to attack New York City.”
John Miller, the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, said the city had been the target of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 9/11 catastrophe in 2001 and that 26 other plots had been “prevented through intelligence, investigation and interdiction.”
Monday’s attack, right in the middle of Christmas season when the city is filled with daytrippers and tourists expecting a fairytale Manhattan, was the second on New Yorkers in six weeks, coming after a man in a rented truck drove up a crowded bike path on Halloween, killing eight people.
In the sprawling Times Square station, a “low, muffled sound” was heard when the bomb detonated, according to the New York Times.
“You can tell that it was not normal commuter noise,” said Roxanne Malaspina, 50, an employee in the Bloomberg legal department. She had just gotten off the A train when she heard the explosion and joined a crowd running further into the station to catch a train away from the area.
“It created a little bit of a panic in that underground passageway,” Malaspina said. “It’s not like normal commuter chaos.”
Port Authority police said officers found a man injured on the ground, with wires protruding from his jacket to his pants and the device strapped to his torso under his coat. They said he was reaching for a cellphone and they grabbed his hands.
A photo published by the New York Post showed a bearded man crumpled on the ground with his shirt apparently blown off and black soot covering his bare midriff. A police officer was holding the man’s hands behind his back. Another photo shown on NY1 showed the bearded suspect, wide-eyed, on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.
The bombing suspect, Akayed Ullah, 27, is believed to have been wearing the device that went off shortly after 7 a. m. Ullah suffered serious burns, while other victims had minor injuries.
The suspect, from Bangladesh, came to the U. S. about six years ago, according to a police official knowledgeable about the investigation. Ullah lives in Brooklyn with his mother and a sister. He worked as a driver, but has a background as an electrician.
Ullah told police he is a follower of the Islamic State terror group, but investigators believe he’s a solo actor who planned the attack after reading one of the terror group’s publications on the internet. His rudimentary explosive device, put together with matches, caused more flash than explosion.
It was the first bomb blast in the subway in more than two decades. The last bomb to go off in the subway system was believed to be in December 1994, when an explosive made from mayonnaise jars and batteries wounded 48 people in a car in lower Manhattan.
Monday’s attack happened at the city’s busiest subway station and a major transit hub, with 64 million subway riders passing through every year. In 2016, daily ridership on the subway was 5.7 million, a record high.
“This is a fact of l i fe, whether you’re in New York or London or Paris,” Miller said. “The question is, ‘ Can it happen here?’ And the answer is, it can happen anywhere.”