Senior law enforcement officials also said that they were increasingly focused on the possibility that the attack was connected to a bombing that took place 11 hours earlier in New Jersey, but the authorities still needed to compare all the bombs before drawing any conclusions. On Sunday, five explosive devices were discovered in a trash can at an Elizabeth train station.
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The NYPD is looking for Rahami for questioning in the New York City explosion that happened Saturday, Sept. 17.
Agents with the FBI pulled over a auto on a highway in Brooklyn on Sunday night and were questioning the vehicle’s occupants in connection with the investigation into the New York City bombing that injured 29 people, authorities said.
Police said around 1,000 extra security personnel are being deployed to New York’s transport hubs.
A spokesman for the United Nations told the Associated Press that the organization is assessing security in the wake of the bombing as it prepares to host world leaders arriving for the General Assembly.
A separate federal law enforcement official told the Associated Press that the bomb contained residue of an explosive often used for target practice that can be picked up in many sporting goods stores.
Both bombs in New York were filled with shrapnel and made with pressure cookers, flip phones, Christmas lights and explosive compound, The New York Times reported late Sunday, citing law enforcement officials.
Authorities questioned several people early Monday after a vehicle stop in New York City as they worked to determine if there is a connection between several incidents involving explosive devices in two days.
While many New Yorkers are taking a stoical approach, there is evidence of unease with reports and rumours circulating over those responsible and their motives.
“We know it was a very serious incident, but we have a lot more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this”, de Blasio told reporters Sunday.
Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage told journalists that two men walking near the train station had noticed a package in a waste basket and took it.
The cause appears to be a pressure cooker device, similar to the one used in the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 that killed three people and injured hundreds. The agency said the stop was related to its investigation of the Chelsea explosion, although no one has been charged with a crime.
“Was it a political motivation, a personal motivation”.
He added that a second device, found nearby on West 27 St. and cleared by authorities, was “similar in design” to the first. Authorities were trying to determine if they were connected. One of the devices exploded as a bomb squad used a robot to try to disarm it.
U.S. media reported that the NY bomb was planted in a dumpster, but police say they are still not “100 percent” certain where the blast originated with major construction work taking place close by.
The governor of NY has confirmed the bombing in NY that injured 29 people was an act of terrorism, but has dismissed any links to Islamic State (Isis).
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Hillary Clinton, his Democrat opponent, strongly condemned what she described as “the apparent terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York” and said Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for the St Cloud attack should “steel our resolve to protect our country and defeat Isis [also known as Islamic State and Isil] and other terrorist groups”.
