Akayed Ullah, NYC Bombing Suspect, Hit With Terror Charges: NYPD

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A man who set off a pipe bomb in a subway tunnel connecting Times Square to the Port Authority Bus Terminal was hit with terrorism charges Tuesday morning, police officials said.

Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old resident of Flatlands, Brooklyn, is facing charges of supporting an act of terrorism, criminal possession of a weapon and making terroristic threats, the NYPD announced Tuesday. The U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York announced Tuesday in a criminal complaint that Ullah may face charges including providing material support to a terrorist organization, use of weapons of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use.

Ullah — a native of Bangladesh who came to America in 2011 and earned a green card — detonated an "improvised, low-tech explosive device," at 7:20 a.m. Monday as he walked in a pedestrian tunnel underneath 42nd Street, NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said. Ullah was heading from the Eighth Avenue subway platforms toward the Times Square station at Seventh Avenue, O'Neill said.

Ullah was in custody at Bellevue Hospital Monday where he's being treated for serious injuries including burns and wounds, officials said. Three other people suffered minor injuries consistent with being in the area of an explosion, FDNY commissioner Daniel Nigro said Monday.

The accused terrorist was not on the NYPD or FBI's radar before Monday's attack, NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning." Today's terrorists are increasingly acting alone, which is making it harder for law enforcement agencies to detect plots, Miller said Tuesday.

"You’ve got people who are consuming propaganda and these plots unfold where they’re not necessarily working with anybody else or confiding in everybody else, and that’s something we’re still looking at here, where the conspiracy is within the confines of our own mind, and that’s a very hard place to get to," Miller said on "CBS This Morning."

Bangladeshi officials announced that they are investigating members of Ullah's family in the country. Ullah had recently visited his homeland between Sept. 8 and Oct. 22, the Associated Press reported. Ullah returned to Bangladesh two years ago to get married and has a 6-month-old son living in the country, the AP reported.

Bangladesh's government condemned Monday's attack and said that Ullah has no criminal record in the country and did not appear to belong to a militant group, the AP reported.

Also See: NYC Pipe Bomb Suspect Described As Cocky

Read Patch's complete coverage of Monday's terror attack here.

(Lead image: Akayed Ullah, the suspect in Monday morning's Midtown Manhattan bombing, is seen in this 2012 Taxi and Limousine Commission photo. He had a license to drive a black car from 2012 to 2015. Photo from NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission)