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Terror bomb luckily a dud; Commuters carry on

On Monday, a heavily armed police officer helped maintain the perimeter around the evacuated Port Authority bus terminal as the crime-scene investigation continued.  Photo by Christian Miles

BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC AND LINCOLN ANDERSON | Updated Wed., Dec. 13: An explosion of what police called a “low-tech” pipe bomb in a tunnel connecting the Port Authority and Times Square early Monday morning sent a shock through the city and a ripple of panic through one of the world’s busiest transit hubs.

Downtowners were awakened shortly after the blast to the blare of sirens and the beat of helicopters overhead as first responders raced Uptown.

Akayed Ullah, 27, was arrested for detonating the bomb around 7:20 a.m. in the underground walkway that connects the Eighth Ave. IND subway lines with the I.R.T. lines at Times Square and the 42nd St. Shuttle. Luckily, the device malfunctioned, averting what might have been numerous deaths and injuries.

At a press briefing, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said the device was strapped to Ullah’s body with Velcro and zip ties, and that, in transit video, the suspect is seen walking down the corridor.

Besides the suspect, three people had minor injuries. Two took themselves to Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, and one to Mt. Sinai Queens.

Ullah, meanwhile, sustained serious injuries to his hands and abdomen when he detonated the device, and was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called it an “attempted terrorist attack.”

“Let’s be clear,” he said. “As New Yorkers, our lives revolve around the subways. When we hear of an attack on the subway, it’s incredibly unsettling.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo said Ullah was a “lone wolf” terrorist, not connected to a local cell.

Ullah, originally from Bangladesh, has lived here for seven years, and resides in Flatlands, Brooklyn. Neighbors said he kept to himself. News reports said he made the bomb himself based on instructions he found online, and that it included Christmas lights.

Akayed Ullah had an NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission black-car license from March 2012 to March 2015. Courtesy NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission

It was reported that Port Authority Officer Anthony Manferdini, a former Marine with bomb-technician experience, saw the wounded Ullah reaching for a cell phone, which could have been a detonator, but stopped him from reaching it. There were wires running down his pant legs.

According to a law-enforcement source who spoke to CNN, Ullah “was upset, in his words, with the ‘incursion into Gaza.’ ” Last week, President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, sparking outrage in parts of the Arab world. Over the weekend, there were Israeli airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza, CNN reported. The New York Post reported that Ullah was angry at what he called decades of violence in Syria, Iraq and Gaza, and saying, “I wanted to damage here.”

The Daily News reported that Ullah told “authorities his attack was in the name of the Islamic State,” and that he had been reading ISIS materials online, along with Inspire, the English-language version of the magazine by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Among the magazine’s twisted articles is “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.” However, after his arrest, Ullah stressed he was loyal to ISIS not Al Qaeda.

According to the Post, Ullah was compelled to intentionally detonate the bomb in the tunnel after becoming enraged at seeing cheery Christmas ads on its walls.

Recently released ISIS propaganda shows a picture of Santa Claus in Times Square next to explosives and the phrase “We meet at Christmas in New York…soon.”

Emergency medics from Northwell-LIJ were on the scene after the terror scare. Photo by Christian Miles

After the bomb went off, NYC Transit responded quickly, and “immediately shut down” the A, C and E lines, Joe Lhota, chairperson of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said. The 1, 2, 3, N, Q, R, W and 7 trains were skipping Times Square-42nd St. in both directions, but now have resumed making the station stop with delays. The A, C and E were still bypassing the 42nd St.-Port Authority Bus Terminal stop.

Lhota said all trains would be back to normal by evening rush hour.

Initially, police also shut down major crosstown streets, including 14th St., so emergency vehicles could move about unimpeded.

Although the attack sent a frisson of fear through the city, it didn’t totally derail the morning commute.

Straphangers, undaunted, were flowing through the subway at 14th St. and Eighth Ave. just a few hours after the Midtown blast. Photo by Lincoln Anderson

Three hours after the bomb blast, straphangers were busy bustling in and out of the IND subway station at Eighth Ave. and W. 14th St.

“People are in the system,” an NYC Transit worker said as he emerged from the stairs at the southwest corner, on his way to buy a coffee from a nearby vendor’s cart.

“People don’t stop,” he said. “It’s New York City. It’s just a blip on the screen,” he said of the incident.

Frank Kulbaski, 51, a lawyer at PayPal’s West Village office, watched TV news reports on the blast before heading in to work from Long Island City, Queens.

“The chance of getting hurt is like the chance of winning the lottery — and I haven’t had any luck with the lottery,” he shrugged.

Instead of taking the 7 train and then switching to the I.R.T. at 42nd St., as usual, he instead hiked over to Court Square and took the E train all the way to 14th St.

“It made my commute much longer,” he said, “but I got to work.”

A woman smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk before going into the subway said the morning’s events were shaking up her plans since she had to go all over the city.

“I’m modifying everything,” she said. “I’m a dog walker, so I’m modifying everything.”

She noted she was a third-generation Villager — “There are still some of us around!” she quipped — but didn’t want to give her name.

Two young tourists, Vincent Schablinski, 25, from Germany, and Claire Jean, 23, from Canada, had just bought a $5 arepa at an open-air sidewalk cooking operation on the corner. After Jean had taken some souvenir shots of him chowing it down, they were ready to hop into the subway. Asked if they were frightened by what had happened, they said, no.

“The city is so big,” Schablinski said while polishing off the arepa, “that [if] it happens to you or me — the risk is really low, actually nothing.”

They were staying at the Dream Downtown hotel in the Meatpacking District and, clearly undaunted, were heading up to take a look at yet another major transit terminal, Grand Central Station.

De Blasio said there would be an expanded police presence Monday and that police were working to secure all major transit hubs.

However, there didn’t appear to be any police posted inside at the south end of the 14th St. and Eight Ave. station Monday morning around 10:30 a.m.

“This is most resilient place on Earth. We’ve proven it time and time again,” de Blasio said. “We’ve proved it just over a month ago. We proved it on 9/11. We are going to prove it again today. The terrorists will not win. We are going keep being New Yorkers.”

Monday’s blast comes on the heels of the attack in Tribeca on Oct. 31 when Sayfullo Saipov, another disgruntled lone-wolf ISIS-loving terrorist, drove a truck onto the Hudson River bikeway at W. Houston St., killing eight and injuring 11. He was arrested at the scene.