Explosion rocks Manhattan: no serious injuries

[Anthea]

Explosion rocks Manhattan: Multiple injuries feared as blast from rips through Chelsea neighborhood and hundreds flee

Police responded to explosion in Chelsea neighborhood at West 23rd and Sixth Avenue around 8.30pm
Hundreds of people were fleeing the scene down the block as police cordoned off the area
At least three people were taken away from the scene in ambulance, but their injuries are unknown

Firefighters and police officers responded to an explosion in Chelsea on Saturday night.

The fire department was deployed to a building at 135 West 23rd Street near Sixth Avenue around 8.30pm.

At least three people were seen being taken away from the apparent scene of the blast in ambulances, but the severity of their injuries was not immediately clear.

A car seen driving through the area had its rear window blown out.

Police and fire representatives said they were investigating reports of an explosion.

It was reported that part of the building may have collapsed.

New York City Police issued a bulletin advising motorists in the area that they should 'expect extensive traffic delays and emergency personnel in the area of 23rd Street and 7th Avenue' due to police activity there and asking the public to avoid the area.

The blast, according to a witness, occurred on 23rd Street, a major east-west thoroughfare in the fashionable downtown neighborhood of Chelsea.

Hundreds of people were seen fleeing down the block, as police cordoned off the area.

The explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood comes just hours after the deadly pipe bomb that exploded along a route where thousands of runners were due to take part in a charity run in New Jersey.

More than one thousand spectators, including war veterans and small children, had gathered just a few blocks from the blast in Jersey Shore town on Saturday afternoon.

Two more pipe bombs, that hadn't exploded, were found in a garbage can near the event which sought to raise money for marines and sailors.

The pipe bomb near D Street exploded about 9.30am - the exact time runners were due to pass that location.

No injuries were reported but bomb-sniffing dogs have continued to look for more bombs in the area.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... attan.html

Was this a gas explosion or was this connected to the pipe bomb?

[Benny]

From CNN:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/17/us/ne ... index.html

/B

[Anthea]

From CNN:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/17/us/ne ... index.html

/B

was an intentional act

They should tell it like it is

It was a terrorist attack

Whether or not it was an Islamic State attack or some other group

It was still a terrorist attack

[Anthea]

Suspicious devices found near New Jersey station

A suspicious device found near a New Jersey railway station exploded as a bomb squad was attempting to disarm it with a robot, officials say.

It was one of up to five devices found in backpack inside a rubbish bin near the station in Elizabeth, according to the city's mayor. No-one was hurt.

The discovery came after three attacks at the weekend - bombs in New York and New Jersey, and stabbings in Minnesota.

The explosion in New York's Chelsea area injured 29 people.

In Elizabeth, New Jersey, police detonated a device on Monday following concerns it was a live bomb.

"That was not a controlled explosion," said Mayor Christian Bollwage, adding that the blast happened as a robot examining a device cut a wire.

The bag containing multiple devices was picked out of a bin by two men who thought it could contain something of value.

"They started to examine the backpack is when they found the wires and the pipes and they dropped the backpack, walked around the corner, went in to police headquarters and notified us right away," he said.

In New York City, the FBI said it had stopped a "vehicle of interest" in Brooklyn on Sunday but made no arrests.

Five people were taken into custody for questioning, officials told US media. But a spokeswoman said no-one had been charged and the investigation was continuing.

Both the bomb that detonated on Saturday in Chelsea, and a device found nearby, were shrapnel-filled pressure cookers - similar to the bombs used in the attack on the 2013 Boston marathon, US media report.

The two instruments appeared to be "similar in design", New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

It comes after several attacks in the US over the weekend:

A pipe bomb exploded on the route of a charity race in New Jersey on Saturday, forcing the event to be cancelled but causing no injuries
Also on Saturday, at least eight people were wounded in a stabbing attack at a shopping mall in the US state of Minnesota
At least 29 people were injured in an "intentional" explosion in the Chelsea area of Manhattan at around 21:00 (01:00 GMT on Sunday)http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37404573
Another device was later found four blocks from the site of the blast and later destroyed in a controlled explosion
A backpack containing suspicious devices was found in Elizabeth, New Jersey, late on Sunday
One device found in Elizabeth exploded early on Monday as a bomb disposal robot tries to deactivate it

Some 1,000 extra security personnel are being deployed to New York's transport hubs.

Authorities have described the weekend bombings in New York and New Jersey, along with a stabbing attack in Minnesota, as acts of terrorism and are trying to establish whether there are any links between them.

But they say they were so crude that it is unlikely an international group was behind them.

So-called Islamic State (ISIS) has said the suspected attacker in Minnesota was one of its "soldiers". It is not clear whether ISIS was involved in planning the assault.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37404573

[Anthea]

New Jersey charity run called off after pipe bomb explodes on race route

A pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey beach town on Saturday along the route of a charity road race to benefit military veterans and their families, but no injuries were reported.

In what authorities believe was a deliberate attack, the explosive device went off at 9:35 eastern standard time in a plastic garbage container ahead of the 5 km race in Seaside Park, a resort about 80 miles south of New York City, the Ocean County prosecutor's office.

Even so, the explosion stirred dark memories of the deadly blasts at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013 that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

Authorities immediately canceled the race, the Seaside Semper Five 5K, closed the beach and the surrounding blocks and evacuated dozens of homes as a search for more devices ensued.

"It's obvious it was meant to affect the run, the fact that it went off at 9:35," five minutes after its scheduled start, Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office, said in an interview on CNN.

The charity run was organized to benefit military veterans and the families of those lost in military service. The run's name is a reference to Semper Fidelis, Latin for "always loyal," the motto of the US Marine Corps.

Asked if Marines and their families had been targeted, he said, "I think we can assume that, considering the location of the device right along the run route where, if it was just a matter of minutes in terms of difference, there would have been a good number of people running past that explosive device."

The garbage can contained several "pipe bomb-type devices" wired together, Fave said. "The one went off, and the others did not," he said.

Law enforcement authorities said they did not know the motive for the blast.

"What the intentions of the individual, we don't know yet, whether it was criminal or terroristic," Della Fave told CNN.

The explosive went off near the boardwalk by the intersection of Ocean Avenue and D Street, authorities said. According to a course map for the race posted online, runners would have passed near the intersection twice: once 0.7 miles into the race and again 0.7 miles from the finish.

A 1-mile "fun run" was due to begin at 9 a.m. It was not immediately clear whether it got off on schedule, nor whether its route would have taken runners near the site of the blast.

Authorities were evacuating about 30 homes, many of them summer homes, near the site of the explosion, Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy said in a phone interview. He said authorities were in the initial phase of their investigation and trying to keep people safe.

Authorities including the FBI were in the town and were investigating the possibility there was at least one other unexploded device, the office said.

About 5,000 people were set to run the 5 km race in Seaside Park, a family-oriented resort known for its beachside boardwalk, a local NBC affiliate reported. The race was to begin at 9 a.m. but was delayed because of late sign-ins, the affiliate said.

A seafood festival at nearby Point Pleasant Beach scheduled for Saturday was canceled after the explosion, apparently as a precaution, the county sheriff said on Twitter.

At the 2013 Boston Marathon, two brothers of Chechen ethnicity who professed allegiance to Islamist militants planted homemade bombs near the finish line of the renowned race.

The subsequent explosions killed and maimed dozens of bystanders in the most high profile attack on U.S. soil since 11th September 2001.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09 ... ew-jersey/