‘Lone wolf bomber’ arrested in New York

A SUSPECTED bomber has been arrested in New York, it was revealed last night, following a two-year police surveillance operation.

The city’s mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the arrest of Jose Pimentel, a 27-year-old who is believed to have been planning to build and detonate a bomb.

But Mr Bloomberg said there was no imminent threat because the suspect, a convert to Islam who lived in Washington Heights in Manhattan, had been under arrest since Saturday.

Pimentel, who was charged on three counts involving conspiracy and weapons offences, allegedly learned how to build a pipe bomb from the al Qaeda online magazine Inspire and police said he planned to target soldiers returned from overseas, police and post offices.

He was caught drilling into a pipe in his mother’s New York apartment after having been under surveillance by the New York Police Department for more than two years.

Mr Bloomberg said that Pimentel’s bomb was capable of detonation and that the accused had planned to target police officers and postal workers as well as US service personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq..

The mayor was speaking at a joint news conference with Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and District Attorney Cyrus Vance, the chief prosecutor for Manhattan.

Police had the man under surveillance for about two years, and Mr Bloomberg described it as a “lone wolf scenario”, meaning the suspect was believed to be acting on his own.

Since the 11 September 2001 attacks by al Qaeda militants, New York City has developed extensive intelligence and counterterrorism divisions within the New York Police Department.