Trevor Bickford, the 19-year-old suspect being held in custody for attacking New York police officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve, carried a handwritten note “expressing to join the Taliban in Afghanistan and die as a martyr,” CNN reports.
According to reports in the US media, Bickford attacked and injured three New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers near Times Square as crowd gathered to celebrate the New Year, before being shot in the shoulder.
This is the first attack in the West in which the suspected attacker is apparently inspired by the Taliban since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
