No-fatality attack in New York a grim reminder of terror threat from Pakistan

WASHINGTON: A homemade bomb exploded in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York on a busy Saturday night in what authorities said was an ''intentional act'' of terrorism.
Although there were no fatalities, the 29 injury casualties, one of them serious, and the discovery a short time later of an unexploded pressure cooker bomb nearby, was a grim reminder of the terrorist attacks the city has repeatedly suffered, mostly at the hands of elements from Pakistan.
The attack came not only during the ongoing UN General Assembly session, an event that throws the city into a security tizzy, but also just after the 15th anniversary of 9/11, the biggest terrorist attack on the United States.
Mayor Bill Blasio initially said there was no evidence of a terror connection yet, but the episode, coming just hours after a small pipe bomb exploded at a Marine Corps race on the Jersey shore, set the city on edge. New York governor Andrew Cuomo subsequently labeled the incident an ''act of terrorism'' at a news conference on Sunday morning, but specified that there is no evidence yet of ''international terrorism.''
Despite indication from De Blasio and Cuomo that the incidents could be local, presidential election politics gave it a bigger spin.
Donald Trump told his supporters at a Colorado airport hangar moments after landing there, and even before authorities released details that, ''a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what’s going on.''
Some of his supporters gasped, and Trump went to talk about need to get ''very, very tough.'' He has often attributed terrorist attacks in the US to its immigration policies that allow a large immigrant influx.
''We'll find out. It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant. ... We'll see what it is,'' he said, without going into specifics.
Hillary Clinton also referred to the incident as a ''bombing'' although she was even more circumspect.
''I think it is important to know the facts about any incident like this. ... It is always wiser to wait until you have information before making conclusions, because we are just in the beginning stages of trying to determine what happened,'' she said.
Manhattan, which is also home to the United Nations, has been a magnet for terrorists aiming for high-profile attacks.
The biggest terrorist attacks on the island borough were planned by the Pakistani nephew-and-uncle combine of Ramzi Yousef (first World Trade Center bombing in 1993) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (9/11), attacks for which Pakistan was never held accountable for its fostering of extremist proxies nurtured by its intelligence agency ISI.
A more recent attempt in 2010 came from Faizal Shahzad, son of a Pakistani Air Vice Marshal, whose effort in May 2010 to attack the iconic Times Square with a car bomb was foiled.
Pakistan-origin extremists were also involved in the San Bernardino terrorist attacks (Syed Rizwan Farooq and Tashfeen Malik) and the planned bombing of the Washington Metro (Farooque Ahmed).
Despite such serial connections to Pakistan, Islamabad has escaped US and international action while continuing to play the victim card, even as it uses high-profile attacks on India by its terrorist proxies, such as the latest assault in Uri, to highlight the ''Kashmir masla.''
In fact, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will talk this issue up at the UNGA this week despite the country sheltering US- and UN-designated terrorists such as Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Azhar, and Hafiz Saeed, not to speak of having hosted Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and other major league terrorists.