The pickup truck driver who plowed down a New York cycle path, killing eight people, in the city\u2019s worst attack since September 11, was associated with the Islamic State group but \u201cradicalized domestically,\u201d the state\u2019s governor said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The driver, identified as Uzbek national named Sayfullo Saipov, mowed down pedestrians and cyclists over a mile-long stretch of the bike path Tuesday in an exclusive neighborhood of Lower\u2019s Manhattan\u2019s West Side, where children and their parents were preparing to celebrate Halloween.<\/p>\n
Police shot Saipov, 29, in the stomach at the end of the rampage, but he was expected to survive.<\/p>\n
Handwritten notes in Arabic were found near his vehicle, pledging allegiance to the jihadist group, the New York Times reported, citing law enforcement officials. Documents found inside the truck included a picture of an IS flag, the New York Post said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a depraved coward is what he is, and he was associated with ISIS, and he was radicalized domestically, and he\u2019s a depraved coward,\u201d New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN.<\/p>\n
Cuomo said investigators had determined that the suspect, who reportedly entered the United States in 2010, had since shown an interest in IS and its terror tactics, but that there was no evidence so far that others helped him plot the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur only evidence to date is that this was an isolated incident that he, himself, performed,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s truck rampage struck in broad daylight just blocks from the memorial to the September 11, 2001 attacks.<\/p>\n
Five of the eight killed were Argentine nationals, part of a group visiting New York from the city of Rosario for a school reunion, the foreign ministry in Buenos Aires said.<\/p>\n
Brussels said a Belgian woman on a trip with her mother and sister was killed.<\/p>\n
Eleven people, including an Argentine and three Belgians, were also wounded.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has denounced the attacker as \u201cvery sick\u201d and a \u201cderanged person,\u201d and announced a stepping-up of his \u201cextreme vetting program\u201d for foreign travelers to the country.<\/p>\n
The United States \u201cmust not\u201d allow Islamic State group jihadists to \u201creturn, or enter\u201d the country after being defeated overseas, Trump said.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday the president tweeted that the suspect had entered the United States via a visa lottery program supported by opposition Democrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter),\u201d Trump tweeted.<\/p>\n
Saipov was living in Tampa, Florida and had recently been staying in New Jersey, where the truck was rented, reports said. Law enforcement sources said he was arrested in Missouri on a traffic violation last year.<\/p>\n
Police said he drove a rented Home Depot pickup down a bike and pedestrian lane where tourists and New Yorkers were out enjoying brilliant fall sunshine, just after 3 pm (1900 GMT), before colliding with a school bus, wounding two adults and two children.<\/p>\n
The suspect then fled the vehicle brandishing weapons that were subsequently identified as a paintball gun and pellet gun, before being shot in the abdomen by a police officer and taken into custody.<\/p>\n
US media said he shouted \u201cAllahu akbar\u201d (\u201cGod is greatest\u201d), and New York police chief James O\u2019Neill confirmed he made a statement when he exited the vehicle that had led investigators to \u201clabel this a terrorist event.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attacker struck in TriBeCa, one of the city\u2019s most upscale neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a smell of gunshots,\u201d said John Williams, 22, who arrived at the scene 30 seconds afterward en route to the park. \u201cThere was a man lying on the ground. It looked as if he\u2019d been shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the cops shot him, everybody started running away and it got a little bit crazy right there. So when I tried to look again, the guy was already down,\u201d a witness who gave his name only as Frank told local television network NY1.<\/p>\n
Heavily-armed police fanned out across the city of 8.5 million, home to Wall Street, Broadway and one of the biggest tourist draws in the United States.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s attack was the first deadly terror-related incident in the US financial and entertainment capital since Al-Qaeda hijackers brought down the Twin Towers, killing more than 2,700 people on 9\/11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pickup truck driver who plowed down a New York cycle path, killing eight people, in the city\u2019s worst attack since September 11, was associated with the Islamic State group but \u201cradicalized domestically,\u201d the state\u2019s governor said Wednesday. The driver, identified as Uzbek national named Sayfullo Saipov, mowed down pedestrians and cyclists over a mile-long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9186,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184\/revisions\/9186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}