Trump: send him to Gitmo
IS-inspired Uzbek planned New York attack for weeks
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is mulling sending New York terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov to America’s military detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“Send him to Gitmo, I would certainly consider that,” Trump said. “We also have to come up with punishment that is far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now,” Trump told reporters at the start of a cabinet meeting. “We need quick justice, and we need strong justice. Much quicker and much stronger than we have right now.”
The US president announced a stepping-up of his “extreme vetting program” for foreign travelers and said he was moving to terminate the green card lottery which enabled the suspect to enter the country.
Trump’s targeting of the lottery – and of Democrats who support it – was slammed in New York, a Democrat-run state and city, which prides itself on the diversity of its more than 8.5 million-strong population.
The Uzbek immigrant who killed eight people in New York’s worst attack since September 11 2001 spent weeks planning the assault and left behind handwritten notes in Arabic hailing the Islamic State (IS) group, police have confirmed. Although he was associated with the jihadist group he became radicalised after moving to the US, they said.
The driver, who moved to America legally in 2010, mowed down pedestrians and cyclists at high speed down a bike path on Lower Manh West Side, as children and their parents prepared to celebrate Halloween on Tuesday afternoon.
Police shot Saipov, 29, in the abdomen after he crashed into a school bus and exited his pickup truck, brandishing paintball and pellet guns. He has been interviewed in hospital and is expected to survive.
New York State governor Andrew Cuomo, who said the suspect was associated with IS, called him a “depraved coward”.
“That’s what this was – the actions of a depraved coward. There is no grand statement to what was done,” he told a news conference.
Handwritten notes in Arabic pledging allegiance to IS were found at the scene in the upmarket neighbourhood of TriBeCa, close to schools and not far from the 9/11 memorial to the victims of the 2001 Al-Qaeda attack.
“The gist was that the Islamic State would endure forever,” said John Miller, head of New York police intelligence and counter-terrorism. Saipov also reportedly yelled “Allahu akbar” (God is great).
Vehicle rammings have been a frequent tactic deployed by IS sympathizers in the West, including in Barcelona, London, Stockholm and Nice, where a Tunisian suicide truck bomber killed 86 people last year.
While the New York Times said the attacker had been on the radar of federal authorities, Miller said Saipov had never previously been the “subject” of either a New York police intelligence or an FBI inquiry.
New York would remain resilient, Mayor Bill de Blasio insisted, with the annual marathon going ahead as planned on Sunday. Police said the event, which attracts more than 50 000 runners and 2.5 million spectators, would be the most protected ever with rooftop observation posts and sniper teams doubled.
“This was an attack on the United States of America and an attack on New York City,” de Blasio said. “We will not be cowed, we will not be thrown off by anything.”
While officials say preliminary evidence suggests Saipov acted alone, Cuomo has drastically stepped up security at airports, tunnels and Penn Station, which he called the busiest rail hub in the hemisphere.
Five of the dead were Argentines, visiting for a school reunion. A Belgian woman was also killed. Of the 12 injured, nine remain in hospital – four critical but stable and the others serious, said fire department chief Daniel Nigro.
Saipov reportedly lived in Florida and Ohio, before moving to Paterson, a former industrial hub in New Jersey with his wife and three children. The truck was rented in New Jersey.
Hundreds of FBI and police detectives are now working 24-seven, following leads in New York, New Jersey and around the country. — AFP