“I want New Yorkers to be confident when they go back to work on Monday that NY is up and running and we’re doing everything that we need to do”, Cuomo said. “We need the facts to be able to piece all this together. Things are moving very quickly”. No one was injured.
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After the bombing in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City, Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill deBlasio went to great lengths to assure New Yorkers that worldwide terrorism was not involved.
On Sunday, Cuomo had effectively ruled out a link to global terrorism, saying there was no evidence to suggest that.
Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has based much of his campaign message on arguing that the United States is no longer safe and that he alone can protect the nation, told Fox News on Monday morning that he expects more attacks.
“The more we learn with each passing hour is it looks more like terrorism”, de Blasio said in an interview on NY1 News. Elizabeth is about 16 miles southwest of New York City.
Spokesman Josh Earnest says the White House is following the situation closely.
FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser says agents stopped “a vehicle of interest in the investigation” at 8:45 p.m. Sunday.
A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that an explosion in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building.
“The crudity of the devices in all three cases certainly doesn’t point to any group that’s been developing IEDs [improvised explosive devices] for years”, a U.S. official involved in the investigation who requested anonymity told Reuters. No one has been charged with any crime.
Although the incidents shared similarities, including the use of cellphones to detonate the explosives, law enforcement officials told CNN Sunday they could not confirm, at that time, that the explosions were linked.
The Chelsea blast followed a pipe bomb explosion on Saturday morning along the route of a running race in Seaside Park, a beachside town in New Jersey.
Police found and arrested the man suspected in the three bombings. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
Cuomo, appearing later on “Fox & Friends”, confirmed that authorities are seeking Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, who is believed to be a USA citizen of Afghan descent.
“There is no other individual we’re looking for at this point in time”, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio added, as he called on New Yorkers to remain vigilant in the aftermath of the incidents.
“What we didn’t know yesterday, and we don’t know yet, is: Is anyone taking credit for it and is it linked to global terrorism?”
Rahami is wanted for questioning in connection with the explosion that occurred yesterday in Chelsea district of Manhattan, New York, and injured 29 people, it said.
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said the Chelsea explosion was not in a dumpster but next to one in the street.
Officials said initially that they didn’t believe the bombs found Saturday night in New York City and Saturday morning in New Jersey were connected to global terrorism.
Sources said a second device that was found was a pressure cooker. His last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant on Monday morning.
But after an additional device was found Sunday night outside a restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey, authorities seem to be shifting their thinking. One of the devices exploded as a bomb squad attempted to disarm it with a robot. No injuries were reported. But he said there was no specific and credible terror threat against New York City. A senior official said the cause of the event is unknown, and police and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force are responding as a precaution.
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Five suspicious devices were found on Sunday near the train station in Elizabeth. The Chelsea bombing, coming just days after the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, put the most populous US city on edge.
