Ed Davis On NY Bombing: 'This Is The New Face Of Terrorism'
BOSTON (CBS) – Police in Boston are stepping up security in the wake of the bombings in New Jersey and New York.
Surveillance video helped authorities capture the suspect, 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami.
"Quite frankly, this is the new face of terrorism," WBZ security analyst Ed Davis said.
Davis knows terrorism well. He was Boston's Police Commissioner in 2013 during the marathon bombings.
"The bomb that was put in New York, the two bombs the pressure cooker bombs were very similar in make-up to what we saw here in Boston but despite those similarities there were differences," Davis said.
Like the type of explosives used inside the bombs and the triggering device. Davis says the Tsarnaev brothers set off their bombs with a remote control. The suspect in New York detonated the bomb with a cell phone.
"That allows the device to be set off from anywhere in the world," Davis said. "The fact that he was able to get this done, to me shows a level of sophistication that requires training."
WBZ has learned Rahami traveled to his native country of Afghanistan multiple times, according to law enforcement sources. As a standard procedure, he was questioned every time he returned to the U.S. but was not on the radar as someone who might have been radicalized.
Davis says combating homegrown terrorism is not easy. "You have to prosecute in the war overseas in Syria and Iraq and do preventive stuff in the United States with just as much dedication," he says.
He says if you see something, say something.
"It's going to be decades before this is over," Davis said. "We need to adapt to it, be vigilant but also not be frightened."
