Port Authority Bomber Was Inspired by ISIS Christmas Attacks, Officials Say<br />Mr. Ullah had attached the pipe bomb to himself with a “combination of Velcro<br />and zip ties,” said James P. O’Neill, the commissioner of the New York Police Department.<br />A would-be suicide bomber detonated a pipe bomb strapped to his body in the heart of Manhattan’s busiest subway corridor, rending the early Monday commute with a blast<br />that reverberated up through the city’s sidewalks, caused transit chaos and terrified thousands of travelers who fled headlong through tunnels choked with smoke.<br />At a news conference on Eighth Avenue just outside the Port Authority, the police displayed a picture of Mr. Ullah<br />that appeared to have been taken inside the subway walkway after the blast.<br />He chose the location because of its Christmas-themed posters, recalling strikes in Europe against Christmas markets, he told investigators,<br />and set off his bomb in retaliation for U. S. airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria and elsewhere, several law enforcement officials said.<br />Four people were injured in an explosion in the passageway connecting the Times Square and Port Authority subway stations.<br />The explosion occurred in the underground passageway connecting the Times Square and Port Authority subway stations in Manhattan.<br />A suspect, identified by the police as Akayed Ullah, 27, an immigrant from Bangladesh who lived in Brooklyn, was in police custody.<br />Mr. Ullah acted alone, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, adding that no other devices had been found.<br />The attack, at 7:20 a.m., occurred in a long pedestrian walkway connecting the Eighth Avenue, Seventh Avenue and Broadway subway lines.
