NEW YORK—A driver plowed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path along the Hudson River in Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 11 before being shot by a police officer in what officials are calling the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since Sept. 11.

The rampage ended when the motorist, whom the police identified as Sayfullo Saipov, 29, smashed into a school bus, jumped out of his truck and ran up and down the highway waving a pellet gun and paintball gun and shouting “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” before he was shot in the abdomen by the officer. He remained in critical condition on Tuesday evening.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared the incident a terrorist attack and federal law enforcement authorities were leading the investigation. Investigators discovered handwritten notes in Arabic near the truck that indicated allegiance to Daesh, two law enforcement officials said. But investigators had not uncovered evidence of any direct or enabling ties between Saipov and the terrorist group and were treating the episode as a case of an “inspired” attacker, two counterterrorism officials said.

“Based on information we have at this moment, this was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians,” De Blasio said at a news conference.

Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has been exhorting followers to mow down people, and England, France and Germany have all seen deadly vehicle attacks in recent months and years.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it a “lone wolf” attack and said there was no evidence to suggest it was part of a wider plot.

New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill said a statement the driver made as he got out of the truck and the method of attack led police to conclude it was a terrorist act.

Saipov immigrated to the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010, and had a green card that allowed permanent legal residence. He had apparently lived in Paterson, New Jersey, and Tampa, Florida. An official said he rented the truck from a Home Depot in New Jersey.

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Almost immediately, as investigators began to look into Saipov’s history, it became clear that he had been on the radar of federal authorities. Three officials said he had come to the federal authorities’ attention as a result of an unrelated investigation, but it was not clear whether that was because he was a friend, an associate or a family member of someone under scrutiny or because he himself had been the focus of an investigation.

Over the past two years, a terrorism investigation by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the New York Police Department and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn resulted in charges against five men from Uzbekistan and one from Kazakhstan for providing material support to Daesh. Several of the men have pleaded guilty. It is unclear whether Saipov was connected with that investigation.

Martin Feely of the New York FBI office declined to comment on whether Saipov was known to the bureau.

FBI agents were expected to search Saipov’s home in Paterson and his car on Tuesday night, a law enforcement official said. A phone, recovered at the scene of the attack, also would be searched, another official said.

Dilnoza Abdusamatova, 24, said Saipov stayed with her family in Cincinnati for his first two weeks in the country because their fathers were friends.

Abdusamatova said Saipov then moved to Florida to start a trucking company. Her family members think he got married about a year after arriving in the United States and may now have two children. Around that time, she said, he cut off contact with them.

“He stopped talking to us when he got married,” Abdusamatova said.

The attack unfolded as nearby schools, including Stuyvesant High School, were letting out on a crisp Halloween afternoon. It ended five blocks north of the World Trade Center. The driver left a roughly mile-long crime scene: a tree-lined bike path strewn with bodies, mangled bicycles and bicycle parts, from wheels twisted like pretzels to a dislodged seat.

Five of the people killed were Argentine tourists who travelled to New York for a 30-year high school reunion celebration. A sixth member of the group was wounded. Belgian officials said one of those killed and three of the injured were from Belgium. Global Affairs Canada wasn’t able to confirm by Tuesday night whether any Canadian citizens were among the dead and wounded. The Canadian Embassy in Washington did not return a request for comment.

Saipov, a slim, bearded man, was seen in videos running through traffic after the attack with the paintball gun in one hand and the pellet gun in the other. The authorities credited the officer who shot him with saving lives. Six people died at the scene and two others died at a hospital, officials said.

Coming five months after a car rammed into people in Times Square, killing one, Tuesday’s attack again highlighted the risk to pedestrians from a car attack on busy city streets.

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The Times Square incident was not a terrorist attack. But both incidents brought to mind the terrorist attack last year in Nice, France, in which a cargo truck killed scores of people celebrating Bastille Day.

The episodes also evoked calls from terrorist magazines, including in a recent edition of Rumiyah, a magazine used by Daesh for attackers to mow down pedestrians with trucks, continue the attacks with a knife or a gun and claim credit by shouting or leaving leaflets.

New York City police say there are "several fatalities and numerous people injured" after a motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path and struck several people, then emerged from the vehicle screaming and firing something that appeared to be a gun. (The Associated Press)

“I saw a lot of blood over there. A lot of people on the ground,” said Chen Yi, an Uber driver.

Eugene Duffy, a chef at a waterfront restaurant, said, “So many police came and they didn’t know what was happening. People were screaming. Females were screaming at the top of their lungs.”

Sirus Minovi, 14, a freshman at Stuyvesant, was hanging out with friends at the corner of Chambers and West streets when the truck crashed.

“We heard people screaming, ‘gun’ ‘shooter’ and ‘run away,’ ” Minovi said. “We thought it was a Halloween prank.”

He said he realized it was not a joke when he saw the man staggering through the intersection, screaming words he could not make out. A passerby approached the attacker, apparently trying to calm him, Minovi said, until the man realized the attacker had a gun and backed away with his hands up.

Emily, 12, a Grade 7 pupil who declined to give her last name, had been walking on her usual route home just after 3 p.m. when other students ran toward her.

“All the kids were screaming, ‘Run!’ ‘Gun!’ ‘Run inside,’ ” she said, still wearing cat ears for her Halloween costume. She said mothers pushing strollers and children in costumes ran in a herd back toward the school.

U.S. President Donald Trump responded to the attack on Twitter: “In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his condolences to the victims in an official statement released Tuesday evening.

“Tonight, we offer our prayers and thoughts to our neighbours in the United States,” it reads. “We are with you, as always, as friends and allies.”

New York City went ahead with its annual Halloween parade amid heavy security following the attack. The parade stepped off Tuesday evening about a mile from where the attack occurred.

Saipov wove a deadly path on a stretch usually bustling with commuters, runners and cyclists, drawn by the downtown offices nearby or the shimmering Hudson River.

He turned onto the bike path alongside the West Side Highway at Houston Street just after 3 p.m. and drove south, striking numerous pedestrians and cyclists, many of them in the back, the authorities said. People scattered and dove to the asphalt.

The truck, labelled with a sign saying, “Rent me starting at $19,” rammed into the bus near Chambers St. The bus serves two schools in Lower Manhattan and transports students with special needs. Two adults and two children on the bus were injured, the authorities said.

Saipov jumped out of the truck before a uniformed officer assigned to the city’s 1st police precinct shot him, commissioner O’Neill said. The police said they were not looking for additional suspects.

Officials said 11 people were taken to nearby hospitals with serious, but not life-threatening, injuries.

A large section of the West Side Highway was closed for the investigation as hundreds of officers, including the bomb squad, responded to the scene. Several nearby buildings, including Stuyvesant, were placed on lockdown.

With files from Brennan Doherty, The Associated Press and The Washington Post

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