Suspect in N.Y. attack followed ISIL directions
He viewed how-to material on cellphone
NEW YORK — The Uzbek immigrant accused of mowing people down along a Manhattan bike path went on the deadly rental-truck rampage “in the name of ISIS" and planned it for weeks, closely following the extremist group’s online instructions.
Authorities said the driver of the rented Home Depot truck, Sayfullo Saipov, 29, watched videos from the Islamic State group on his cellphone and picked Halloween for the attack because he knew more people would be out on the streets.
Afterward, as he lay wounded in the hospital, he asked to display the flag of ISIS, also known as ISIL, in his room and “stated that he felt good about what he had done,” prosecutors said in court papers.
He was charged with providing material support to a terrorist group and committing violence and destruction of motor vehicles.
Saipov left behind knives and a note, handwritten in Arabic, that included Islamic religious references and said ISIS “will endure,” FBI agent Amber Tyree said in court papers.
Questioned in his hospital bed, Saipov said he had been inspired by ISIS videos and began plotting an attack about a year ago, deciding to use a truck about two months ago, Tyree said.
John Miller, deputy New York police commissioner for intelligence, said Saipov “appears to have followed, almost exactly to a T, the instructions that ISIS has put out.”
In the past few years, the Islamic State has exhorted followers online to use vehicles, knives or other close-at-hand means of killing people in their home countries. England, France and Germany have all seen deadly vehicle attacks since mid-2016.
A November 2016 issue of the group’s online magazine detailed features that an attack truck or van should have, suggested renting such a vehicle and recommended targeting crowded streets and outdoor gatherings, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a militant-monitoring agency.
In Tuesday’s attack, Saipov drove his speeding truck for more than a kilometre along a bike path, running down cyclists and pedestrians, then crashed into a school bus, authorities said.
He was shot in the abdomen after he jumped out of the vehicle brandishing two air guns, one in each hand, and yelling “God is great!” in Arabic, they said.
In addition to the eight people killed, 12 people were injured.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saipov appeared to have acted alone after becoming radicalized while in the U.S. Assailants in a number of other recent extremist attacks around the world were found to have been “lone wolves” — inspired but not actually directed by the Islamic State.
The slight, bearded Saipov is a legal, permanent U.S. resident. He lived in Ohio and Florida before moving to New Jersey around June, authorities said.
Birth records show he and his wife had two daughters in Ohio, and a neighbour in New Jersey said they recently had a baby boy.
Saipov was a commercial truck driver in Ohio. More recently, he was an Uber driver.
In Ohio, Saipov was an argumentative young man whose career was falling apart and who was “not happy with his life,” said Mirrakhmat Muminov, a fellow truck driver from heavily Muslim Uzbekistan.