An attempt to detonate a bomb at the New York Times Square was an one-off event and is considered by the U.S. government as a potential terrorist attack and is perceived very seriously, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said.
New York police defused a bomb found inside a sport utility vehicle that caused the evacuation of people from Times Square on Saturday night.
"Times Square I think is now safe," Napolitano said in an interview with ABC television's "This Week." "Right now we have no other information other than it is a one-off."
"Nonetheless, we are alerting state and local law enforcement authorities, and others to stay on their toes," she continued.
The police chief Raymond Kelly said the device was in a special storage facility and posed no threat.
New York police cordoned off crowded Square Garden on Saturday night evacuating people from the area after detecting a suspicious vehicle that contained an improvised explosive device, ABC television channel reported.
The channel reported earlier, citing various sources that witnesses saw a smoke coming out of a Nissan Pathfinder parked in New York's theater district and called the police.
The car was, however, identified later as "a Land Rover with a Connecticut or unmatched license plate."
One of the witness said, according to ABC, that the car was driven in Times Square, was left with its headlights on and the driver ran away from it.
A bomb squad was called in and it blew out the vehicles' windows with water cannons in order to check the car.
MOSCOW, May 2 (RIA Novosti)
