(Newswire.net — November 2, 2017) –A 29-year-old man in a rented pickup truck killed six and injured a dozen people near the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City.
The attack took place on Tuesday, October 31, when a Home Depot rental truck hopped a curb at West Houston Street and drove south on the bike path on the west side of West Side Highway in lower Manhattan for several blocks, CNN reports.
According to the The New York City Police Department (NYPD), the truck crashed into a school bus and the driver of the truck left the vehicle. A police officer shot the escaping driver in the abdomen. He was hospitalized, and officials say that he will survive.
The driver of the truck has been identified as Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov. Originally from Uzbekistan in Central Asia, he has been living in the US since 2010. He has a driver’s license issued in Tampa, Florida.
According to New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, six people were dead at the scene, two died at the hospital, and at least 11 victims of the attack are hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Witnesses reported that the suspected man was yelling “Allahu Akbar,” before the police wounded and overpowered him, and the note found near the truck confirms that it is was a terrorist attack. That’s why the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force took over the investigation.
The eyewitnesses describe chaotic scenes when the white truck hit the cyclists near the World Trade Center in Manhattan. After he drove the truck into a school bus, the driver came out and was waving with gun. Police officials said that he was armed with a fake handgun.
This is not the first time that a terrorist attack was carried out with a vehicle. In recent years we were witnesses of bloody attacks with trucks and other vehicles in London in Great Britain, Barcelona in Spain and Nice in France.