A suspect is in custody, and there have been several non-life-threatening injuries, following an explosion in a New York City subway passageway this morning.
The New York Times quoted a “senior city official” saying the suspect had been wearing an explosive device strapped to his person and that “the police had stripped him naked to remove it.”
The explosion occurred around 7:30 am in an underground subway passage just 200 feet from the Port Authority bus terminal at West 42nd St. and Eighth Ave. In one of the busiest transit hubs in the city, it took place as New Yorkers made their way to work on a Monday morning. The incident also comes as the holiday shopping and tourist season in the Big Apple is in full swing.
New York’s Fire Department announced on Twitter that there were a total of four injuries.
Authorities evacuated the Times Square subway station and the Port Authority bus terminal.
Former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” said preliminary information suggests the man is in his 20s, possibly from Bangladesh, “who supposedly was setting the device off in the name of ISIS, so definitely a terrorist attack, definitely intended.”
The incident comes just five weeks after a man mowed down bikers and pedestrians with a rented truck in lower Manhattan. Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan, was charged with killing eight people and injuring a dozen others. He was indicted last month on murder and terror-related charges.
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