A 29-year-old ethnic Uzbek professional truck driver ploughed a truck along a New York City bike path killing eight people on October 31.

Uzbekistan has been the subject of negative headlines in Western and Russian media within the past year, with coverage of incidents from the Uzbek attacker in Stockholm, to ethnic-Uzbek Kyrgyzstan-born Russian attackers in St Petersburg and the elimination of an Uzbek Islamic State (IS) agent connected to a bar attack in Turkey. Also earlier this year, Russia arrested 12 Central Asian extremists from a group long present on Uzbekistan’s wanted list.

Speaking at a press conference shortly after the attack, New York City police commissioner James P. O’Neill described the events. 

“It's about 3:05 pm, a male driving a rented Home Depot pickup truck entered the West Side Highway bicycle path at Houston Street, began driving southbound, striking a number of pedestrians and bicyclists along the route. At Chambers Street, the truck collided with a school bus, injuring two adults and two children,” O’Neill told journalists. 

The attacker was shot by police as he left the truck cab brandishing two handguns, and hospitalised. 

O’Neill did not name the perpetrator, but he was later reported to be Sayfullo Saipov, an ethnic Uzbek who had lived in the US since 2010.  

Police found a note from the Central Asian driver, in which he pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS), US media reported.  

Most extremism in Central Asia is not expressed as IS or any other major terrorist movement activity. There are no large organised terrorist groups in Central Asia with the exception of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The rise of radical Islam in the region has most often been blamed on the regional economic crisis, as well as general poor socio-economic conditions experienced by the lower segments of society.