An armoured police truck occupies the street outside of the New York Port Authority
A man who is suspected of setting off an explosion in the New York City subway was taken into custody after the blast Monday morning, authorities said.
Police said the suspect was injured in the blast. A police spokesman said the man was not critically injured but did not go into further detail, describing the situation as "very fluid."
The New York Fire Department said that four injuries were reported but that all of them were non-life-threatening.
The blast was reported in Midtown Manhattan in the area of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, at 42nd St. and 8th Ave.
On MSNBC, former New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton said the suspect is in his mid-20s, is possibly from Bangladesh and "was supposedly setting the device off in the name of ISIS," according to preliminary information from his police sources. ISIS is another name for the Islamic State, an extremist group that has urged its followers to wage attacks around the world.
"So, definitely a terrorist attack. Definitely intended," Bratton told the news network. "As to whether the device malfunctioned or didn't function correctly, that will have to be determined."
Bratton said the explosion took place in one of the passageways at the Port Authority subway station, although was not certain which one. Even the passageways would have been very crowded at that time in the morning, he added.
New Yorkers should expect to see increased police presence at all transportation hubs around the city immediately, he said.
Bratton, who served two terms as the NYPD commissioner (one in the mid-1990s and the other from 2014 to 2016), said law enforcement officials for years have anticipated additional and more frequent attacks. A September 2016 bombing that injured 29 people in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan took place on Bratton's last day of his second term.
"The pace is quickening, as we have been indicating that it would," he told MSNBC. "New York continues to remain the focus of interest. ... That is something that we can anticipate. These attacks are going to increase. That's the reality."
The explosion Monday came just weeks after a man driving a truck plowed through pedestrians and bicyclists on a path along the west side of Manhattan, killing eight people and wounding a dozen others. That driver, who survived, was taken into custody and told authorities that he carried out the attack in the name of the Islamic State.
The Port Authority Bus Terminal, which bills itself as the world's busiest bus terminal, is not far from Times Square. The incident occurred in the subway, a police spokesman said.
Details on how the suspect was apprehended were not immediately available, but the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, a union representing Port Authority police officers, said on Twitter that the department's officers took down the suspect at gunpoint.
According to the police, three subway lines - the A, C and E - were evacuated as a result of the blast. All subway trains were bypassing the Port Authority and Times Square stations, officials said.
President Trump was briefed on the incident Monday, according to the White House, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, D, was briefed as well, his office reported.