NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A counter-terrorism security expert said the capture of a suspect in today’s underground explosion at the Port Authority Bus Terminal could provide investigators with new information about potential conspiracies against the safety of New Yorkers and if a specific organization was behind today’s incident.
Monday’s pipe bomb blast left four people injured, including the suspect said to have been wearing a secondary explosive device.
“This is something that is a game changer,” said security expert Manny Gomez. “If we’re going to have suicide bombers here like we’ve had overseas, that is going to be a problem because obviously… that’s never happened in the continental U.S. If they are successful in recruiting suicide bombers, we’re going to have a problem.”
“Now (police) have what was one of their worst fears: A bomber who is clearly prepared to take his own life to take as many other people as possible,” he said.
A suspect in custody has been identified by police as a 27-year-old man from Bangladesh currently living in Brooklyn.
Gomez said investigators will now be interviewing the suspects friends and family as well as looking at international contacts.
“This is happening as we speak, fortunately we got this person alive, we will very quickly be able to identify who he is… to ascertain if this person had other people working with him and if there is a possibility of a conspiracy,” he said.
The fact one of the explosive devices was taken intact before being detonated will provide investigators with a wealth of information, Gomez said.
“The investigation is obviously tell by the forensics of the explosive device how sophisticated it is, how the wiring and types of materials are used in the pipe bomb,” he said. “That in and of itself will determine if this person helped in the creation of this bomb, the signature of the bomb itself will tell us what organization – perhaps even what terrorist bomb maker was the person who invented this bomb… That will tell us if this bomb was given to him by an outside source, or was he able to make this bomb himself.”
“A lot of these bombing attempts are thwarted on their own due to premature explosions, things of that nature – but these things do go on internationally,” Gomez said. “If this shows there are more that are coming, that’s going to be a problem for the city.
Hopefully this not what is preliminarily appears to be.”
Gomez is a former special agent with the FBI who investigated terrorism and espionage cases as an agent in the National Security Division. He is also a former Sergeant in the NYPD.
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