No injuries were reported after the blast but it was the first of a series of incidents that has put the USA on alert.
Advertisement
Earlier in the evening Bollwage told journalists that two men walking near the train station had seen a package in a waste basket and took it.
After noticing “wires and a pipe”, they dropped the package and alerted police.
The device was transported to the NYPD Bomb Squad facility at Rodman’s Neck Range in the Bronx. The assailant was a “soldier of the Islamic State”, the militant group said on Sunday.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday there was still no indication that an explosion that injured 29 people in Manhattan on Saturday was linked to global terrorism, while investigators scoured the scene of the blast.
There were no immediate connections established between the Minnesota attack and the bombings in NY and New Jersey, which came days before the United Nations General Assembly opens on Tuesday.
It remains unclear whether the suspicious backpack in Elizabeth was connected to any of those events.
Earlier Sunday, investigators scrambled to find out who planted a bomb that rocked a bustling New York City neighborhood.
Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton also rushed to condemn “terrorism”.
On Saturday, an explosion erupted overnight in Manhattan’s busy Chelsea neighbourhood, injuring 29 people. Police later discovered a second bomb four blocks away, that was safely defused and taken away for analysis.
A pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey seaside town on Saturday morning shortly before thousands of runners were due to take part in a charity race for USA marines and sailors.
US Rep. Charlie Rangel, a Democrat who represents Manhattan, told CNN that Saturday’s attacks – and a level of vigilance needed to combat them – represent “a new norm”.
De Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo both said the explosion has no links so far to worldwide terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State, though it’s still early in the investigation.
The Democratic governor said the preliminary investigation did not appear to show a link to worldwide terror, and he noted that no terror group had taken credit for it.
Clinton went on to use the attacks to bolster her own calls for stepped up war in Syria and Iraq.
A spokesman for the New York Police Department declined to confirm the reports, only saying that the probe was ongoing.
Investigators studying CCTV footage may have identified the same man at each location, law enforcement sources told NBC New York.
Police confirmed that the assailant asked some victims whether they were Muslim before attacking them and made “references to Allah”.
Federal Bureau of Investigation experts were examining remnants of the two devices that went off in Chelsea and Seaside Park, New Jersey, some 80 miles (130 km) south of New York City, as well as the undetonated pressure-cooker bomb, the same sort of improvised explosive device that killed three people and wounded more than 260 in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
On Sunday night, FBI agents stopped “a vehicle of interest in the investigation” of the Manhattan explosion, according to FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser.
The video below was posted by Terri Restaurant, located at West 23rd Street, 176 yards east of where the explosion took place.
The FBI was also investigating an apparent “lone wolf” terrorist knife attack at a Minnesota mall. Violent crime is rare in Manhattan and police say they have foiled 20 terror plots since the 2001 Al Qaeda hijackings destroyed the Twin Towers. “What was it? We do not know that yet”, he added, calling on residents to be vigilant.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, a law enforcement official said investigators had discounted a claim of responsibility on the social blogging service Tumblr.
