A suspect who allegedly set off a pipe bomb in the New York City subway has been taken into custody after the explosion sent peak-hour commuters into a frenzy on Monday morning, local time.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said the incident in Midtown Manhattan, near Times Square, was being treated as a terrorist attack involving one male "who, thank God, was unsuccessful in his aims".
The man was identified by New York Police Department (NYPD) commissioner James P O'Neill as 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, from Brooklyn.
He said Ullah entered an underground walkway connecting two subway stations - Times Square and Port Authority - at about 7.20am and detonated a "improvised, low-tech explosive device" attached to his body using Velcro straps and cable ties. It's understood the device was a crude pipe bomb.
The bomb detonated unsuccessfully and Ullah was the sole person injured in the blast. He was taken to hospital with burns and lacerations to his hands and abdomen.
Three bystanders later took themselves to hospitals reporting ringing in their ears and headaches.
Mr O'Neill said Ullah, a former taxi driver, made statements shortly before the incident but he would not elaborate.
Law enforcement officials told the New York Post that Ullah had said from his hospital bed: "They've been bombing in my country and I wanted to do damage here".
New York governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed that investigators believe Ullah was motivated by Islamic State.
He described Ullah as someone "who was annoyed or irritated by our political position or who was sympathetic to ISIS" who apparently accessed bomb-making instructions online.
Mr Cuomo said Ullah intentionally detonated the bomb but only the explosive chemical inside ignited. The pipe itself didn't shatter.
"Fortunately the bomb was very low-tech," he said on MSNBC. "It did go off [but] it didn't have the desired effect."
Multiple media outlets have reported that Ullah moved to the US from Bangladesh about seven years ago and lived in Brooklyn. His home was being searched by authorities on Monday.
The explosion at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue caused authorities to evacuate one of the busiest transit hubs in New York City as the work week was set to begin.
Two stations and the Port Authority bus terminal were momentarily evacuated but, two hours after the incident, most services had resumed.
"The terrorists will not win, we're going to keep being New Yorkers, let's get back to work," Mr De Blasio said.
"The choice of New York is always for a reason because we're a beacon to the world and we actually show we show that a society of many faiths and many backgrounds can work and we show that democracy can work. Our enemies want to undermine that."
Commuters underground near 40th Street and 8th Avenue said they began to flee after a loud, muffled sound was heard in the Port Authority subway station.
Andre Rodriguez, 62, a caseworker at one of the city's shelters, said he heard an explosion shortly before 7.30am.
"I was going through the turnstile," he told the New York Times. "It sounded like an explosion, and everybody started running."
Alicja Wlodkowski, 51, said that she had been in a restaurant inside the Port Authority when she suddenly saw a crowd of people running.
"A woman fell, and nobody even stopped to help her because it was so crazy," she said. Then it all slowed down. I was standing and watching and scared."
Diego Fernandez, one of the commuters at Port Authority, told Reuters; "There was a stampede up the stairs to get out. Everybody was scared and running and shouting."
The attack was the second in New York City in six weeks, coming after a man in a rented ute drove up a crowded bike path on Halloween, killing eight people.
President Trump was briefed on the incident on Monday, according to the White House.
With wires
