The driver of a rental truck drove down a busy bicycle path in New York near the World Trade Center, killing eight people and injuring about a dozen others in what officials said was an "act of terror."

After crashing the truck into a school bus, the suspect exited the vehicle while displaying imitation firearms and was shot in the abdomen by a police officer, according to the NYPD.

The suspect, a 29-year-old man, is in police custody and was taken to a hospital for treatment, officials said.

The incident is being investigated as terrorism, officials said. Witnesses reported the suspect was yelling "Allahu Akbar," according to four law enforcement sources. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is taking over the lead of the investigation.

The suspect in the New York attack is from the central Asian nation of Uzbekistan and came to the United States in 2010, two law enforcement sources told CNN. He lives in Tampa, Florida, the sources said.

He is in surgery and is expected to survive, a person familiar with the investigation said.

President Donald Trump tweeted that the incident "looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person.

"This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "aimed at innocent civilians, aimed at people going about their lives who had no idea what was about to hit them."

Rented truck used

Authorities think it is an act of terrot because the driver said something moments after leaving the truck and the method of the attack were consistent with other terrorist attacks, New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill said. Vehicles have been used as weapons in a number of terrorist attacks in recent years, including in deadly incidents in Nice, France, and London.

The suspect, driving in a Home Depot rental truck, hopped a curb at West Houston Street and drove south on the bike path on the west side of West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan for several blocks, officials said. A pellet gun and a paintball gun were recovered from the scene, officials said.

Just after the incident, news footage showed several mangled bicycles on the popular bike path as medics tended to the wounded in the background.

Six people were declared dead at the scene and two were pronounced dead at the hospital. At lease 11 others were transported to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

No other suspects are being sought, the NYPD said.

A spokesman for Home Depot confirmed one of the company's rental trucks was part of an incident in lower Manhattan and said the company is "cooperating with authorities" in the investigation.