US Authorities have arrested a man they claim was plotting to detonate pipe bombs in and around New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. The intended targets of Jose Pimentel, 27, were US military personnel who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as US postal facilities and police in New York and Bayonne, New Jersey, according to Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. 
The suspect was described by Bloomberg as an "al Qaeda sympathizer," though he is not believed to have ever worked with or received training from anyone in that organization. 

"There is no evidence he worked with anyone else," the (CNN) quoted Bloomberg as saying. An unemployed native of the Dominican Republican who is a US citizen, Pimentel had lived most of his life in Manhattan, except for five years in Schenectady, New York. 

He''d had been monitored by authorities since 2009, Kelly said. 

Last August, the suspect allegedly decided to carry out the bomb plot. 

He "jacked up his speed" after September 30, when al-Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen, according to the police commissioner .
 

Source: BNA