Lone-wolf peril
NYC at risk of ‘terrorism for dummies’
Unpredictable lone-wolf attacks are terrorism’s future — and the challenge of preventing them may get harder before it gets easier, the NYPD’s counterterrorism chief warned Sunday.
“We start every day on the idea that today might be the day of the attack,” Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller told radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970.
He pointed out that there were no terrorist attacks in the city between Sept. 11, 2001, and late 2016, but since then, there have been three.
“One of the questions we’re asking is: So what’s different? Why are we seeing this?” Miller said.
He noted that all of the recent attacks are linked to ISIS but that there were no known communications between the attackers and overseas operatives. That lack of communication makes would-be terrorists harder to track, he said.
“That becomes an intelligence-collection issue,” Miller said. “If they’re not conspiring with anybody else . . . it’s a bit of a challenge to get between that mindset and whatever device they are using to get their propaganda.
“They’re still communicating with a message that if you can do an attack where you are . . . do it. And do it with what you have on hand. If you have a gun, use a gun. If you have a truck, use a truck,” Miller said. “This is terror- ism for dummies.”
In the most recent attack, an ISIS-inspired would-be suicide bomber set off a homemade explosive device in an underground passageway at the Port Authority Bus Terminal subway station during morning rush hour Dec. 11.
Akayed Ullah, 27, a Bangladeshi native, had wires attached to him and a 5-inch metal pipe bomb and battery pack strapped to his midsection, officials said. He partially detonated the device, which he was carrying under his jacket, inside the walkway to the A, C and E trains at Eighth Avenue and West 42nd Street.
No one was killed and only Ullah, who has pleaded not guilty, was seriously wounded.
That attempt came soon after a terrorist in a rental truck sped for nearly a mile down a bike-only path in lower Manhattan on Oct. 31, killing eight people.
Sayfullo Saipov, 29, from Uzbekistan, was shot by a cop after getting out of the truck holding a pellet and paint gun while screaming “God is great!” in Arabic.
He has pleaded not guilty to eight capital counts.
The first of the three attacks cited by Miller came in late 2016, when Ahmad Khan Rahimi detonated a pressure-cooker bomb in Chelsea, shattering storefront windows and damaging cars.
There were no injuries, but the blast could have killed or wounded many people, officials said.