Manhattan Bombs Built for Carnage Provide Clues Into AttackBy MARC SANTORA, WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, AL BAKER and ADAM GOLDMANSEPT. 18, 2016
A bomb that injured 29 people on Saturday in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, and another that failed to detonate, were filled with shrapnel and made with pressure cookers, flip phones and Christmas lights that set off a powerful explosive compound, law enforcement officials said on Sunday.
Both bombs appeared designed to create maximum chaos and fatalities — they also provided a trove of clues even as any suspects remained unnervingly at large.
A top law enforcement official said that pressure cookers were filled with “fragmentation materials.” The bomb that exploded, at 23rd Street, was filled with small bearings or metal BBs. A second device on 27th Street that did not explode appeared to be filled with the same material, the official said.
Late on Sunday, two senior law enforcement officials said they had i a
“person of interest” in the bombing, though they did not refer to that person as a suspect.
Senior law enforcement officials also said that they were increasingly focused on the possibility that the attack was connected to a bombing that took place 11 hours earlier in New Jersey, but the authorities still needed to compare all the bombs before drawing any conclusions. There, three pipe bombs were tied together, placed in a trash can and also employed by a flip cellphone as a timing mechanism, according to officials. Only one of the three pipe bombs detonated and no one was injured. Officials said the explosive in that device appeared to be black powder.
...more at linkhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/nyreg ... .html?_r=0