What’s happening:

A New Year’s Eve tragedy unfolded when a rented SUV with several gas cans inside collided head-on with another vehicle in Rochester, NY. The devastating crash took the lives of two passengers and led to a large fire. The impact subsequently injured several pedestrians, one of whom is in a critical condition. The FBI is investigating the crash as a possible act of terrorism.

Why it matters:

The proximity of the crash to the city’s Kodak Center, which was hosting a concert at the time, has heightened concerns that this might have been an attempted terrorist attack, aiming for a large-scale catastrophe during New Year’s celebrations.

The details:

The driver of the rented SUV, from Syracuse, suffered life-threatening injuries in the collision. After renting the vehicle at the Syracuse Airport, he was involved in the catastrophic event which resulted in the pronounced death of two individuals in the Mitsubishi Outlander he struck.

The conflagration that followed the crash took firefighters nearly an hour to extinguish. A local journalist, Geoffery Rogers, captured harrowing footage of the incident’s aftermath with reports from witnesses indicating that the car seemed to be speeding and behaving erratically before the collision, fueling speculations of intentional harm.

The bigger picture:

This incident has cast a somber tone over the New Year’s festivities and has raised urgent questions about the safety in public spaces during major events. As the investigation proceeds, authorities are piecing together the motive and potential terror links that could explain the driver’s actions and the presence of numerous gas cans in the vehicle.

Context:

While the definitive motives behind the crash are still unknown, the involvement of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force signals the severity of the incident and the potential implications for national security and public safety.

This story was first published on jpost.com.