Eight Dead in Truck Attack on Manhattan Bike Path; Suspect Arrested
October 31st, 2017Update: Feds Interviewed Accused NYC Truck Attacker in 2015 About Possible Terror Ties
You might have noticed that I included this post in COINTELPRO from the start.
Via: ABC:
Sayfullo Saipov, who has been charged with killing eight people in a vehicle attack on the West Side of Manhattan on Tuesday, was interviewed in 2015 by federal agents about possible ties to suspected terrorists but a case was never opened against him, law enforcement officials tell ABC News.
Saipov was listed as a “point of contact” for two men whose were listed in a Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism database and later overstayed their tourist visas, a federal official told ABC News. One was flagged after arriving from a so-called “threat country,” while the other vanished and was being actively sought by federal agents as a “suspected terrorist.” An official told ABC News that the FBI has since located him and he is not believed to have been involved in Tuesday’s attack.
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Update: Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov
Via: Daily Mail:
The attacker has been named as 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov from Florida.
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Via: Reuters:
A pickup truck driver killed eight people and injured more than a dozen others when he drove down a New York City bike path on Tuesday afternoon in what authorities said was a terrorist attack.
The 29-year-old driver was shot by police in the abdomen and taken into custody after he crashed the truck into a school bus and fled his vehicle, New York City Police Commissioner James O‘Neill told a news conference.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called the incident an “apparent act of terrorism.”
Asked at the news conference about reports that the driver shouted “Allahu Akbar” – which is Arabic for “God is greatest” – O‘Neill said that a statement made by the suspect when he exited his truck and the general circumstances of the assault led investigators to label the incident a “terrorist event.”
O‘Neill said police would not identify the driver at this time.
“Homegrown terrorism”
I reckon it was 10 years ago that I read this newly-synthesized term expressed by some faceless bureaucrat. I remember sending out an email to my contacts telling them to watch as this gradually turns into a new category of terrorism, one that can be applied on domestic soil to a wide range of folks.