A small explosion has damaged a US military recruiting station but caused no injuries in New York's Times Square, triggering a Pentagon alert for other stations across the country.
Times Square explosion not terrorism
"We're treating it as if it were an incident of vandalism," Army spokesman Paul Boyce said at the Pentagon.
Times Square - the normally bustling "Crossroads of the World" with shops, restaurants, hotels, theatres and office towers - was largely empty when the crude bomb went off at around 3.45am (9.45pm NZT).
Low-grade explosives packed in an ammunition box cracked the recruiting station's thick glass door and twisted its metal framing, police said. The blast also shattered a window encasing the classic poster of Uncle Sam saying "I Want You," but did not expose the interior of the office.
In Washington, US Homeland Security Department said there was no sign of an immediate threat to the United States from the incident and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said there was no initial sign of any link to terrorism.
The Army sent a notice to its 1650 recruiting stations nationwide to inform them of the incident and remind recruiters to be aware of their surroundings, Boyce said.
New Yorkers have been on alert since al Qaeda militants used hijacked planes to destroy the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, killing more than 2,700 people. The Twin Towers were also targeted in 1993 by a truck bomb that killed six people.
The one-story recruiting centre in a traffic island in the middle of Times Square invites young men and women to sign up for the US armed forces and periodically attracts anti-war protesters.
The blast occurred before the fifth anniversary on March 19 of the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Military recruiting stations have long been the target of vandalism and protests. Protests are normally peaceful but graffiti and damage to recruiters' cars has occurred, Boyce said.
A witness told police of a hooded man with a backpack riding a bicycle "in a suspicious manner" in front of the station shortly before the blast, but he could not be identified, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
"This type of explosive can certainly cause injuries or even death," Kelly said.
The bomb was larger than those used in grenade attacks on the British and Mexican consulates in 2005 and 2007, he said.
In May 2005 the British consulate in New York was attacked by two small pre-dawn blasts from two "novelty" grenades in the shape of a pineapple and a lemon. In October 2007 the same types of grenades were used in blasts on the Mexican consulate. In both incidents, a man was seen fleeing on a bicycle.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said nobody had reported seeing the bicyclist plant or throw a device on Thursday, and that nobody reported seeing the blast.
"Whoever the coward was that committed this disgraceful act on our city will found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Bloomberg told a news conference.
Nino Reyes, 26, said he had just opened his coffee and snack stand when he heard an explosion and saw a plume of red smoke shoot up and then turn black.
He said he saw three or four people running away.
Times Square also is the site where hundreds of thousands of people gather every New Year's Eve in a celebration that has become a focus of intense police security.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4428854a6428.html
