New York Police Chief James P. O’Neill called this attack a tragedy of the greatest proportions. And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke of a particularly cowardly act of terror, as he said. It is a painful day for New York and the West Side of the city, in the middle of Manhattan, not far from Ground Zero, the site of the September 11, 2001 attack.
Small truck drives in people
The attack carried the signature of the last terrorist attacks with an Islamist background in European metropolises such as London, Nice, and Berlin. The driver of a borrowed pickup truck, who later turned out to be a 29-year-old man, drove at three o’clock in the afternoon local time at great speed and with the intention of meeting as many people as possible, first on a cycle path, then on a footpath, until he passed crashed into a school bus about a kilometer and stopped.
There the driver threw open the car door, shouted Allahu Akbar, God is great, and pretended to be heavily armed – in fact, it was just a toy paintball gun and air rifle in his hands. Security guards, ubiquitous in New York, fired at the man, hit him in the stomach and arrested him. He receives medical care. The authorities are convinced that the 29-year-old was a lone perpetrator.
Terror in New York:
The alleged perpetrator is said to come from Uzbekistan
He is said to come from Uzbekistan and came to the USA in 2010. He lived legally in the United States on a green card. Allegedly, notes in Arabic script were found near the pick-up truck, suggesting a connection with the terrorist militia Islamic State, reported CNN, among others. But there was initially no official confirmation. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke of a “lone wolf”, a so-called lone wolf who, according to the perpetrator profile of Islamist terrorists, may have radicalized himself on the Internet and planned and carried out the attack on his own. However, the exact background and motives for this act are still in the dark.
Tens of thousands moved on Halloween
Had the assassin waited a few more hours, a much bigger catastrophe might have occurred – on Halloween tens of thousands roamed the streets of New York that evening. Armed security forces lined the streets. Mayor de Blasio said the attack was aimed at the spirit of the city – but New Yorkers are strong and resilient and will never be intimidated by an act of terrorism.
Trump wants to tighten security checks
Donald Trump was immediately informed and kept up to date by the security forces. In the short message service Twitter, he first wrote that the attack had been committed by a sick and disturbed person; he then identified the act as a “terrorist attack”. Shortly thereafter, he posted a tweet saying, “We must not allow ISIS to return to our country after we defeated it in the Middle East and elsewhere.”
The White House later circulated an official statement from the President expressing his condolences to the families of the victims and his thanks to the security forces for their decisive action. These brave men and women embodied the true American spirit of resilience and courage, the statement from the Oval Office said. Late in the evening, local time, the president again announced on Twitter that he had instructed the Homeland Security Department to “intensify our already extreme program of security checks,” literally.
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