Officials said the suspect is a 29-year-old who is not from New York

The suspect in what the Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio described as a terrorist attack, has been identified by US media as Sayfullo Saipov.

At a press conference at New York Police Department headquarters, police said the man suspected of carrying out the attack that left eight and at least 11 injured, was a 29-year-old who was not from the city.

New York Police Commissioner James O’Neil said the comments made by the man as he exited the truck - witnesses said he said “Allahu Akbar” - led them to believe the incident was a terror attack.

Officials declined to identify the suspect, but a number of US media outlets, including ABC News, CBS and the Wall Street Journal, named the suspect as Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov.

Reports said he had been living in Tampa, Florida, and may originally have been from Uzbekistan. New York police declined to confirm the identity of the suspect when contacted by The Independent.

Public records show a man with such a name and age living in Tampa, and have previously lived at Fort Myers, Florida, and at two addresses in Ohio.

CNN said he came to the country in 2010. When a reporter said they asked about the possible Florida link, officials declined to comment.

Reuters quoted a a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security called the incident an “apparent act of terrorism”.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said the suspect appeared to have acted alone.

“There’s no evidence to suggest a wider plot or a wider scheme. These are the actions of one individual meant to cause pain and harm and probably death,” he said.

After the attack, mangled and flattened bicycles littered the bike path, which runs parallel to the West Side Highway on the western edge of Manhattan along the Hudson River, according to the news agency.

Of the eight people killed, six were pronounced dead at the scene and two more were pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, according to New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill.

Similar attacks in Europe last year killed dozens of people.

On July 14, 2016, a suspect drove a large truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more in an attack for which Isis claimed responsibility.

Five months later a 23-year-old migrant from Pakistan ploughed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 48.

Saipov Sayfullo Habibullaevic St. Charles MO Dept of Corrections