Sayfullo Saipov named as suspect in New York truck attack killings

The 29-year-old Uber driver was arrested after rental truck ploughed into cyclists and pedestrians, leaving eight dead and 11 injured

The man accused of driving a Home Depot rental truck into a group of pedestrians and cyclists in New York is an Uzbekistan national who lived in New Jersey and drove for Uber.

Details about the 29-year-old suspected of killing eight people and injuring about a dozen more in a terror attack on Manhattan’s Lower West Side on Tuesday are still emerging. Police shot the truck driver in the abdomen after he emerged from the truck brandishing what officials later said were pellet and paintball guns. He has undergone surgery and is in a critical condition in hospital.

As authorities work to piece together the events that led to the deadly attack, some details about Sayfullo Saipov’s life are beginning to surface.

Saipov is reported to have entered the US in 2010 and lived in Ohio, Florida, and latterly in Paterson, New Jersey.

Authorities are yet to comment on Saipov’s motivation for the attack. However, the New York Times reported that he was on the radar of federal authorities.

Dilfuza Iskhakova, who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, told the Guardian that Saipov had stayed with her for several months about six years ago after arriving from Uzbekistan.

“He seemed like a nice guy, but he didn’t talk much,” Iskhakova said. “He only went to work and came back. He used to work at a warehouse.”

Iskhakova said Saipov had been applying for a green card when she knew him. Ohio state records show he registered two businesses while living in the state. The first, Sayf Motors Inc, used Iskhakova’s address while the second, Bright Auto LLC, used an address near Cleveland.

Iskhakova said her family had lost contact with Saipov and she thought he had moved from Ohio to Florida, then to the New York region, and that he now had a wife and two young children.

A marriage licence registered in Summit County, Ohio, lists a Sayfulloh Saipov marrying 19-year-old Nozima Odilova in 2013. Both gave Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as their birthplace.

The couple gave the same address as the Cleveland headquarters of Bright Auto LLC, and Saipov’s occupation is listed as truck driver.

Witnesses have described hearing the attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” – or “God is great” in Arabic – as he carried out the attack, and numerous outlets have reported that authorities found handwritten notes in Arabic in the truck after the attack. This has not been confirmed by officials.

But Iskhakova said she did not know if Saipov was religious. “He’s from my country,” she said. “His father knows my husband, and sent Sayfullo here because he didn’t know anyone.”

Kobiljon Matkarov, 37, an Uzbek immigrant, told the New York Times he had met Saipov in Fort Myers, Florida, several years ago when Saipov was working as a truck driver.

“He was a very good person when I knew him,” he told the Times.

“He liked the US. He seemed very lucky and all the time he was happy and talking like everything is OK. He did not seem like a terrorist, but I did not know him from the inside.”

Saipov had lived in an apartment complex in Tampa, near the Hillsborough river; the Washington Post reported that on Tuesday evening plainclothes investigators were seen departing the complex.

It is unclear when Saipov moved to New Jersey and began driving for Uber, but it is understood he passed the company’s background check. The company is in contact with law enforcement and the FBI, and while it is quickly reviewing Saipov’s work history, it said no “related” concerning safety reports had been uncovered.

In a statement, a spokesman for Uber said the company was “horrified by this senseless act of violence. Our hearts are with the victims and their families. We have reached out to law enforcement to provide our full assistance,” the statement read.

Authorities in many countries are growing increasingly worried about the threat posed by radicals from central Asia, a region of traditionally moderate Islam where dictatorial regimes and economic disenfranchisement have led many to embrace extremism.

An April bomb attack on St Petersburg’s metro system was carried out by Akbarzhon Jalilov, a 22-year-old ethnic Uzbek from Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan; while a New Year’s Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub was also perpetrated by a man born in Uzbekistan.

Governments in Uzbekistan and other central Asian countries have often justified their ruthless crackdowns on dissent as a fight against Islamist extremism, but analysts say the claims may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, seeing many turn to radicalism due to a lack of other opportunities.