WASHINGTON—Tuesday’s attack in New York has accentuated the growing threat presented by jihadi-inspired terrorism from Central Asia, the onetime Soviet region between Russia and China where little economic opportunity and less political freedom have combined to drive young men toward radicalism.

Officials identified the suspect who allegedly mowed a truck through a Manhattan bike path, killing at least eight people and injuring a dozen others, as Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old man of Uzbek origin.

...