What is happening?

On December 11, an explosion went off in a busy New York City transit stop, which injured five people. Officials arrested Akayed Ullah, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi national thought to be living in the US since 2011.

According to The New York Times, Ullah told investigators while in custody that he chose the tunnel “because of its holiday decor… and timed it for a workday.” Ullah also claimed his inspiration coming from a ISIL Christmas attack in Berlin in 2016, which left 12 dead and 48 injured. Officials say that Ullah “pledged himself to Isis” while in their custody.

Ullah had a homemade pipe bomb strapped to his body using Velcro and zip ties that some sources believe he learned to make using an online terrorist manual. This sort of manual gave details on how to make such a bomb.

The bomb did not detonate properly, so no shrapnel was produced, which is often the deadliest part of a pipe bomb. There are reports of a second device that Ullah had. Port Authority officers claim to have seen Ullah reaching for a cell phone, which they believed might have been used to trigger another device, but three officers took it from Ullah before he would detonate it, according to a New York Times article.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated,”It was an effectively low-tech device.”

Ullah detonated the bomb during the Monday morning rush hour, injuring five people and himself, all of whom had non-life threatening injuries when they were treated at the hospital. The blast detonated around 7:20 a.m. in a subway station that accommodates 220,000 passenger trips daily.

“I was scared when I heard about the bombing,” said Kara Daswani, 11. “That many people in one place could have had their whole lives changed.”

With officials still investigating, more information will come.