Asia-Pacific

No bomb found in truck on New York bridge: police

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-06 13:58

NEW YORK - No bomb was found in a truck abandoned on New York City's Triborough Bridge on Wednesday night and the busy roads connecting the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx will reopen shortly, police said.

New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said the bridge was shut down after a worker on the bridge found the vehicle, a U-Haul rental truck with Arizona license plates, abandoned and smelling of gas.

Browne said the police bomb squad X-rayed the vehicle and found it to be empty.

The closure of the span, also known as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, came days after a failed bomb attack on New York's Times Square that has heightened security concerns in America's most populous city.

Prosecutors on Tuesday charged Faisal Shahzad, 30, a naturalized US citizen born in Pakistan, with five counts, including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and trying to kill and maim people within the United States.

He is accused of driving a crude homemade bomb of gasoline, propane gas, fireworks and fertilizer into Times Square on Saturday.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the Times Square plot was the 11th thwarted attack on New York City since hijacked airliners destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers on September 11, 2001, killing more than 2,600 people.