Americans must not succumb to fear: Obama

NEW YORK — United States President Barack Obama yesterday called on Americans “not to succumb to fear” after bomb attacks in New York and New Jersey, and a mass stabbing incident in Minnesota over the weekend.

“At moments like this, I think it’s important to remember what terrorists and violent extremists are trying to do: They want to hurt innocent people, but also inspire fear in all of us,” he said.

“Even as we have to be vigilant and aggressive both in preventing senseless acts of violence but also making sure that we find those who carry out such acts and bring them to justice, we all have a role to play as citizens in making sure that we don’t succumb to that fear.”

Speaking in New York where he will be attending the United Nations General Assembly meetings this week, Mr Obama stressed that investigators at this point saw “no connection” between the incidents on the East Coast and the Minnesota stabbing.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombings in Manhattan or New Jersey, but a jihadist-linked news agency, Amaq, claimed that an Islamic State “soldier” carried out the Minnesota attack, which left eight people injured.

Minnesota Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Rick Thornton confirmed that federal agents were investigating the stabbing as “a potential act of terrorism”, as local media identified the suspect as a 22-year-old Somali-American.

Mr Obama addressed the nation following a dramatic 48 hours, particularly in New York and New Jersey. Following a weekend bomb blast at an upmarket neighbourhood in Manhattan, New York, which injured 29 people, tensions ratcheted up with the discovery of five pipe bombs near a train station in the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey, just over 20km away.

Two men walked out of Hector’s Place Restaurant near the city’s train station and found a backpack containing five explosives resting atop a municipal garbage can, Elizabeth Mayor J Christian Bollwage said. After finding that the backpack contained “wires and a pipe”, the mayor said, the men dropped the item on the street and called the police at around 8.45pm on Sunday (local time).

The FBI quickly sent in a pair of robots and determined that the backpack held five bombs, some of which were pipe bombs, the mayor said. Around 12.30am, the robots tried to clip a wire to disarm one bomb and accidentally detonated it. No injuries were reported. AGENCIES