By Xinhua
Washington : Some U.S. lawmakers each received a letter and a picture of a Times Square military recruiting office before the place was attacked with a homemade bomb, local media reported Thursday.
Citing House insiders and law enforcement officials, Politico, a Washington-based political news website, said that a number of House Representatives, including eight from the New York City area, were each mailed the same letter.
The report said the letters postmarked on Feb. 28 did not contain any direct threats against the lawmakers or Times Square.
The police, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Federal Investigation Bureau were trying to determine the nature of the letters.
“There is no established connection between these letters and the New York City Times Square incident this morning,” police spokesperson Sergeant Kimberly Schneider told reporters. “The investigation is ongoing.”
In a related report, Fox News Channel said the letters included a lengthy “manifesto” about the Iraq war and ended with the words “We did it.”
Explosives packed in an ammunition box cracked the recruiting station’s thick glass door and twisted its metal frame before dawn Thursday, police said. The explosion caused no deaths or injuries.
Pentagon said that it was treating the explosion “as if it were an incident of vandalism,” but the Army has sent a notice to its 1,650 recruiting stations nationwide urging them to be alert.
Both the White House and the U.S. Homeland Security Department said that there was no initial sign of an immediate terrorist threat to the United States from the incident.