She would not provide further details but a government official and a law enforcement source said that five people in the auto were being questioned at an Federal Bureau of Investigation building in lower Manhattan.
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A sweep of the neighborhood following the blast had turned up another device four blocks away consisting of a pressure cooker with wires attached to it and connected to a cell phone.
Authorities cautioned that this is only a line of inquiry and not a conclusion.
The official added that the crude nature of the devices and the apparent low level of planning had some investigators concerned that the blasts were just a test of New York’s security.
In a statement on Sunday, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said: “I strongly condemn the apparent terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New Jersey, and NY”.
But each incident in its own right raised the possibility of terrorist connections, prompting federal and local law enforcement to pour major resources into determining exactly what happened and why. “We’re not taking any options off the table”.
Video: What do we know about the explosives? Republican candidate Donald Trump told an audience, “We better get very tough, folks”.
“Was it a political motivation, a personal motivation?”
On Sunday night, FBI agents stopped “a vehicle of interest in the investigation” of the Manhattan explosion, according to FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser.
Of the 29 people who sustained injuries in NY, 24 were taken to hospital with various degrees of scrapes and abrasions from glass and metal.
He said the second device appeared to be “similar in design” to the first, but did not provide any more details.
The second device has been described as a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone – and this mode of attack was last seen in the U.S. during the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. Both that device and the remnants of that which exploded will be sent to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Virginia, for analysis, authorities said.
The blasts also came on the same day as IS said one of its “soldiers” was responsible for a stabbing rampage that wounded at least eight people at a shopping centre in Minnesota.
NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said at the press conference that evidence did not suggest the explosion was caused by “any natural gas cause”, and he said the location is being treated as a crime scene.
“A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it’s not linked to global terrorism”, Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday after touring the scene of the explosion in Chelsea.
“We’re not going to let them win”, Mr Cuomo said at the scene. “And everyone’s curious, looking over the roof, but then they sat down and just went on with their dinner parties” he said. He said most had been hit with glass or debris. Masum Chaudry, who manages a Domino’s Pizza near the scene, said the explosion “shook the whole building” and caused “total chaos”.
The force of the blast blew out windows and could be heard several blocks away.
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Neither device bore any resemblance to the pipe bomb that exploded earlier Saturday in New Jersey – or to the explosives that ripped off a young man’s foot in a gruesome incident in Central Park earlier this summer, officials said. Because of delays to the start of the run, the explosion occurred in an area without many people in it. The race was cancelled and no one was injured. If the reports regarding the surveillance videos in the NY bombing lead police to a suspect, and that suspect was also present at the location of the pressure cooker, it could be a vital clue in unraveling the case.
