Latest Update, 6:40 p.m. | The police said the explosive device involved in the Times Square blast this morning was “roughly similar” to the devices used in two earlier bombings at foreign consulates in Manhattan, in 2005 and 2007, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at an afternoon news conference [video]. The device had been placed in an ammunition box like the kind that can be bought at a military supply store. Officials said that in today’s attack, a man bundled in a gray hooded jacket or sweatshirt and wearing a backpack was seen riding a bicycle around the recruiting station and acting suspiciously moments before the explosion. Video footage from a surveillance camera showed a bicyclist dismounting, approaching the recruitment center, then returning to the bike and riding away before the explosion occurs. (See related slide show.)
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The authorities were looking into whether the explosion was connected to two earlier blasts that were similar in method and timing, the official said. At about 3:40 a.m. on Oct. 26, 2007, two dummy hand grenades that had been fashioned into crude bombs exploded outside the Mexican Consulate at 27 East 39th Street in Murray Hill, shattering windows. The building was not occupied and no one was hurt. At 3:55 a.m. on May 5, 2005, two crude but powerful explosive devices detonated outside the British Consulate at 845 Third Avenue in East Midtown, shattering windows and damaging a planter.
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Should this go in breaking? Seems pretty significant.