Terror suspect left note pledging his allegiance to Isis
UNITED STATES: A 29-year-old man driving a rental truck ploughed down people on a New York City bike path yesterday in what authorities described as a terrorist attack that killed eight and injured 11 before the suspect was shot and arrested by police.
A sunny autumn day along the Hudson River erupted in chaos when a rented Home Depot truck turned on to the bike path along the West Side Highway in Manhattan.
Witnesses said the speeding truck struck unsuspecting cyclists and pedestrians while onlookers screamed and scattered. It then veered left toward Chambers St, where it collided with a small school bus, injuring two adults and two children inside, officials said.
According to a video from the scene, the man then jumped out of the wrecked vehicle brandishing what appeared to be handguns. Some witnesses said he shouted ‘‘Allahu akbar’', meaning ‘‘God is great’' in Arabic.
A police officer shot the man in the abdomen, police said. He was taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery and was expected to survive. The weapons he was brandishing turned out to be a pellet gun and a paintball gun.
Five friends from Argentina and a Belgian woman were among those killed. An Argentinian man and three Belgians - a mother, father and child - were among the injured.
Law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, identified the suspect as Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek immigrant who had been living in Tampa, Florida.
Inside the truck, investigators found a handwritten note in which Saipov had declared his allegiance to Islamic State, according to officials. There was no immediate indication that the attack had been directed by Isis. However, the group has called on its supporters in Western countries to launch their own attacks, using anything at hand as weapons, including vehicles.
Saipov had been living in Paterson, New Jersey before the attack, and rented the vehicle in that state before driving it into Manhattan, officials said.
The incident marks the greatest loss of life from a suspected terrorist attack in New York since the 9/11 suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001.
US President Donald Trump said on Twitter he had ordered the Department of Homeland Security to step up its ‘‘extreme vetting programme’’ following the attack.
Saipov moved to the US from Uzbekistan about six years ago, said Dilnoza Abdusamatova, 24, who said Saipov stayed with her family in Cincinnati during his first two weeks in the country because their fathers were friends.
Abdusamatova said Saipov then moved to Florida to start a trucking company.
Her family members thought he got married about a year after arriving in the US, and may now have two children. Around that time, she said, he cut off contact with them.
– Washington Post, Reuters