New York Truck Attack: Five Argentine Friends Killed

Five friends from Argentina were among those killed in a truck attack in New York on Tuesday, according to BBC.

Eight people were killed and 11 injured when the driver of the truck mowed down people on a cycle path in Lower Manhattan West Side, as children and their parents prepared to celebrate Halloween on Tuesday afternoon..

A 29-year-old man, an Uzbek immigrant identified by media as Sayfullo Saipov, was shot in the abdomen and injured by police as he left the truck brandishing paintball and pellet guns.and has since been placed under arrest. He is expected to survive the shooting.

“He’s a depraved coward is what he is, and he was associated with ISIS, and he was radicalized domestically,” New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN.

Cuomo, according to CBS, said a note was found inside the truck referring to the Islamic State militant group (IS).

“After he came to the United States is when he started to become informed about ISIS and radical Islamic tactics,” Cuomo also told CNN.

“We have no evidence yet of associations or a continuing plot or associated plots, and our only evidence to date is that this was an isolated incident that he himself performed.”

The attacker reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) as he left the truck. Mr Cuomo said he was radicalised in the US.

It is the deadliest terror attack in the city since 11 September, 2001.

Meanwhile, the Argentine foreign ministry has confirmed the deaths of the five Argentines, who according to Argentine media, were part of a group of nine friends in New York to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their graduation from a polytechnic college in the central city of Rosario. La Nación newspaper said that one of the dead men was steel firm owner Ariel Erlij, who helped pay for the friends’ trip.

The men - all aged 48 or 49 - were identified as Hernán Diego Mendoza, Diego Enrique Angelini, Alejandro Damián Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij and Hernán Ferrucci.

Another of the friends, Martín Ludovico Marro, is being treated in hospital. Three days of mourning have been declared in Rosario, said BBC.

Belgian media said AnneLaure Decadt, a 31-year-old from Staden in Flanders, was also among those killed while three other Belgians were wounded.

Two other victims were yet to be identified.

Vehicle rammings have been a frequent hallmark tactic of IS sympathisers in the West, including in Barcelona, London, Stockholm and in Nice, where a Tunisian suicide truck bomber killed 86 people on B a s t i l l e D a y.