An explosion Monday at New York’s Port Authority subway station involved a Bangladeshi man inspired by ISIS, New York police say according to remodbee.com.
A pipe bomb strapped to the suspect, identified as 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, went off in the New York City subway near Times Square on Monday morning, law enforcement officials said, injuring four, including the bomber.
They say Ullah meant to set off the bomb, but it’s not clear if he meant to do so in a passageway in the Times Square area where it went off Monday during the morning rush hour.
Ullah is in police custody with burns to his abdomen and hands.
Officials said Ullah was inspired by the Islamic State but appeared to have had no direct contact with the group. Ullah came to the U.S. about seven years ago and lives in Brooklyn, law enforcement officials told The Daily Beast.
A tweet surfaced Monday morning claiming that ISIS threatened to attack New York City this Christmas season in a poster.
Speaking earlier on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Bill Bratton, former New York Police Department commissioner, also attributed the explosion to terrorism.
“The preliminary information from police sources, and I emphasize the word preliminary, subject to change, it is a man in his middle 20s probably, possibly somebody from Bangladesh, been in the country about seven years, who supposedly was setting the device off in the name of ISIS,” Bratton said. “So definitely a terrorist attack.”
“This is New York,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “We are a target.”
Cuomo called an explosion in one of New York’s subways “one of our worst nightmares.”
New York City police say they are combing through video of the bombing in the subway system as part of the investigation.
