An explosive device found near the Elizabeth train station Sunday night detonated while being examined by a bomb robot early Monday morning, town officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.
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The discovery came after three attacks at the weekend – bombs in NY and New Jersey, and stabbings in Minnesota.
Bollwage said two men called police and reported seeing wires and a pipe coming out of a package after finding it around 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
The second package was found on Sunday night in a wastebasket outside a pub and located about 500 feet from the train trestle in Elizabeth city, Mayor Chris Bollwage said.
The drone was able to determine that the package might be suspicious and possibly a live explosive device. The attacker apparently asked victims whether they were Muslim before stabbing them, reported Sky News and CNN.
Work is continuing to find out if the explosion and an the unexploded device found just streets away is linked to a pipe bomb that exploded in New Jersey earlier that day. And on Saturday in Seaside Park, New Jersey, a pipe-bomb explosion resulted in the cancellation of a Semper Fi 5K race. No one was injured in that blast.
Two police officers were also wounded in the shootout which took place in Linden, New Jersey. The New York Times reports that more than 2,000 Amtrak and NJ Transit passengers were affected by the investigation.
As many as 29 people were injured after a blast in Chelsea district of Manhattan, New York, yesterday, while a second bomb that was discovered almost four blocks away was defused successfully by the bomb disposal squad.
A spokesman for Bollwage earlier said the explosion was a controlled detonation, but at a news briefing a few minutes later, Bollwage said the robot was “cutting into the device when it exploded”.
The alarm was raised in the New Jersey city of Elizabeth in the early hours of Monday morning after two men found a backpack containing the suspect devices in a bin.
Trains traveling through Elizabeth from New Jersey’s local transit line and Amtrak had been suspended, the mayor said.
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“Bomb techs from the FBI, Union County, and the New Jersey State Police have arrived on the scene and are now rendering the area safe”, said Newark Police on Twitter.
