By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 December 2017

In the 110th issue of the Islamic State’s newsletter, Al-Naba, released on 15 December 2017, the jihadists claimed responsibility for the attempted pipe bomb attack at the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan, New York City, on 11 December 2017. The claim appeared on page 11 of 12 in a section entitled, “Events of the Week”. The text of the claim is reproduced below.

The suspect in the Port Authority attack, Akayed Ullah, 27, a Bangladeshi immigrant, is in U.S. government custody. The Islamic State has generally eschewed claiming attacks when the perpetrator is arrested, but this pattern has been unravelling. The Islamic State claimed the attempted bombing on the train at Parsons Green in the United Kingdom on 15 September, despite the arrest of would-be killer Ahmed Hassan, and claimed the ramming attack in Manhattan on Halloween night, which killed eight people, even though Sayfullo Saipov is in jail.

There were nine Islamic State attacks on America to the end of 2016, and in 2017 there have been at least two, by Saipov and Ullah. There is then a possible IS-inspired attack on the airport in Fort Lauderdale by Esteban Santiago on 6 January that killed five people, the assassination of a rail security officer in Denver by Joshua Cummings on 31 January, and the even more controversial case of Stephen Paddock, the shooter in Las Vegas on 1 October, who slaughtered fifty-eight people and wounded over five-hundred. The Islamic State has claimed the Las Vegas attack, and refers to Paddock by the kunya “Abu Abd al-Bir al-Amriki”.

There has been a change in methodology from the Islamic State in how it claims the foreign attacks: having previously done so usually within forty-eight hours via Amaq, the Islamic State now makes its claims in the periodically-released Al-Naba.

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Bomb Attack on a Gathering of Crusaders in Central New York

The Attacker Declares that he is a Soldier of the Islamic State

A Bangladeshi young man exploded a homemade bomb in downtown New York City, injuring a number of crusaders.

Sources in the American crusader police said that a bomb exploded in a pedestrian tunnel between New York’s famous Times Square and a bus stop nearby, causing the injury of three crusaders, who were near the scene of the attack that is described as “terrorist”.

A young man of Bangladeshi origin who was injured in the same bombing was arrested by U.S. police for planting the bomb at the scene of the attack and detonating it at rush hour on Monday, [in a place] where a large crowd of people was expected to be present.

The Manhattan Attorney General announced that the detainee, named Akayed Ullah, had announced at the hospital where he was being treated for his injuries that he had attacked the crusaders with a pipe bomb, admitting responsibility for the attack.

He [the Attorney General] quoted Akayed Ullah as declaring that he was a soldier of the Islamic State, and that he carried out his attack in retaliation for the crusader bombing of Muslims in Iraq and Syria.