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NEW YORK/ VATICAN CITY. – A pickup driver killed eight people in New York on Tuesday, mowing down cyclists and pedestrians in the city’s first deadly “act of terror” since September 11, 2001. Eleven others were seriously hurt when the truck driver struck in broad daylight just blocks from the 9/11 Memorial, on the West Side of Lower Manhattan, close to schools as children and their parents geared up to celebrate Halloween.

“This was an act of terror and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians, aimed at people going about their lives who had no idea what was about to hit them,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Law enforcement sources identified the perpetrator as Sayfullo Saipov (29). He was arrested in Missouri on a traffic violation last year. The Uzbek citizen living in Tampa, Florida had recently been staying in New Jersey, where the truck was rented, reports said. President Donald Trump denounced him as “very sick” and a “deranged person.”

Confronting what could be the most serious terror-related incident since taking power less than a year ago, the Republican commander-in-chief announced that he had ordered the Department of Homeland Security to step up his “extreme vetting program” on foreign travelers to the country. The United States “must not” allow Islamic State group jihadists to “return, or enter” the country after being defeated overseas, Trump said, albeit as New York officials declined to link the assailant to a specific group.

Trump has sought to ban travelers from several mainly Muslim nations from coming to the US, a move he casts as necessitated by security considerations and critics say is anti-Muslim. His efforts have been repeatedly struck down in the courts, and Ubzekistan was in any case not among the affected countries. Police said the attacker drove a rented Home Depot pickup down a bike and pedestrian

lane, where tourists and New Yorkers were out enjoying brilliant fall sunshine, at 3:05 pm (1905 GMT), before colliding with a school bus, wounding two adults and two children. The suspect then exited the vehicle brandishing weapons that were subsequently identified as a paintball gun and pellet gun, before being shot in the abdomen by a police officer and taken into custody, police said.

Television footage showed the mangled wreckage of the pickup truck, bicycles crushed to smithereens and bodies wrapped in sheets and lying on the ground.Eight people were killed, six of them men who died on the spot, and two others pronounced dead in hospital. Eleven other people were taken to hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries, officials said.

Five Argentines were among the dead, the foreign ministry in Buenos Aires said. Brussels said a Belgian woman was killed and three other Belgians were wounded. European allies and Mexico’s president condemned the attack. “Together we will defeat the evil of terrorism,” said British Prime Minister Theresa May. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “Our fight for freedom unites us more than ever.”

US media said the suspect shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”) and police chief James O’Neill confirmed that he made a statement when he exited the vehicle.

“If you just look at the M.O. of the attack, that’s consistent with what’s been going on. So that along with the statement has enabled us to label this a terrorist event,” O’Neill said.

He was later operated on and was expected to survive, US networks reported. The FBI and New York police urged members of the public to come forward with any information that could assist the investigation, which the mayor said preliminary information suggested was a lone wolf assault. Meanwhile, Pope Francis condemned yesterday recent deadly attacks in Somalia, Afghanistan and New York, saying militants were abusing the name of God to justify their violence.

“I am profoundly saddened by the terrorist attacks in these recent days in Somalia, Afghanistan and yesterday in New York,” the pope said in an address to mark All Saints Day, adding that he was praying for the victims and their families. We ask God to convert the hearts of terrorists and free the world of hatred and of mad murder that abuses the name of God to disseminate death,” he said to Roman Catholic faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square. – AFP/Reuters