New York City : A 27-year-old Bangladeshi national, Akayed Ullah was allegdly responsible for the terror attack which took place near Times Square on Monday.
Akayed arrived in the United States on an F43 family immigrant visa in 2011, reported CNN.
He came from the southeastern Bangladeshi district of Chittagong and last visited the country on September 8.
He is said to have had no criminal record in Bangladesh.
He reportedly told investigators that the recent Israeli actions in Gaza, which were consequences of Trump declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, compelled him to carry out the attack in New York, and that he was avenging attacks on the Islamic State (IS) group in the Middle East.
The suspect was upset, in his words, with the “incursion into Gaza,”, but did not elaborate on what incursion he may have been alluding to, a law enforcement official said.
However, there is no evidence that Akayed, who is an electrician, had any direct contact with the IS.
Consuming terrorist propaganda, he learnt to make the bomb online.
Mindful of IS threats timed to Christmas, he decided to set off the device in a crowded subway passageway near the Port Authority bus terminal because he noticed a holiday display there, the reports said.
Bangladesh is home to almost 150 million Muslims and apparently has been plagued by radicalism.
Last year, twenty people, most of them foreigners, were killed in an attack on Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka by the IS.
In addition to this, for more than two years, a spate of brutal murders has rocked the South Asian nation. At first the killings had a clear pattern, targeting well-known secular writers in the capital, Dhaka.
The murder of the Bangladeshi-American writer Avijit Roy in 2014 — took place right outside Dhaka’s annual book fair.
IS has claimed a number of the attacks through its media affiliates, but the Bangladesh government has consistently denied any IS presence in the country. (ANI)