TWISTED BLAST AT TRUMP
Bomber to Don: ‘You failed to protect’ US
Port Authority bomber Akayed Ullah wanted to send a message to the White House: “Trump you failed to protect your nation.”
The ISIS fan wrote that on his Facebook page before trying to blow up himself and others near the bustling transit hub Monday morning — and he repeated it during his interrogation, authorities revealed.
He had also written, “O AMERICA, DIE IN YOUR RAGE” in his passport, which investigators later found in his Brooklyn home, Acting US Attorney Joon Kim said at a press conference.
Ullah was hit with five charges — including providing material support to a terrorist group, use of a weapon of mass destruction and three bomb-related raps — and faces up to life in prison.
Prosecutors said the Bangladesh-born cabby’s radicalization via online ISIS propaganda began in 2014, after he’d moved to the United States.
He started researching how to build bombs a year ago, they added, and began planning his attack only a few weeks back, constructing his crude explosive device at home last week.
Ullah told authorities from his Bellevue Hospital bed that he “did it for the Islamic State.”
“His admissions included a statement that he did this in support of ISIS, that he had been radicalized in view of propaganda from ISIS,” Kim told reporters.
“He also made statements . . . about issues he had with Amer- ica’s Middle East policies.”
Ullah built the bomb for “maximum damage,” prosecutors charge — filling it with metal screws as shrapnel — and chose to detonate it on a workday because “he believed that there would be more people” around.
Kim wouldn’t comment on reports that Ullah had chosen the specific location for his attack — a subway corridor between the PA terminal and Times Square — in part because of Christmas decorations there, or whether the suspect was already known to law enforcement.
Authorities in Bangladesh said Tuesday that Ullah was not on the country’s terror list and they aren’t sure when he left his homeland. The NYPD has also said he was not on its radar.
Law-enforcement sources told The Post they’ve learned he had called or been in contact with people who are under investigation, although no one who has been arrested for terror offenses.
A neighbor said Tuesday that he saw Ullah get in a car with someone else at around 6 a.m. the morning of the bombing.
“He didn’t look too friendly,” said Youry Valcin, 21, a college student who lives across the road from Ullah’s Flatlands home.
Ullah later boarded an F train at 18th Avenue in Borough Park — several neighborhoods away — en route to his target in Manhattan, according to police sources.
He is expected to appear before a judge Wednesday, likely via video from Bellevue.