He said he recognized Rahami and called police.
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During two appearances in New York, Obama praised the swift work of law enforcement authorities looking into duel bomb attacks in New York and New Jersey over the weekend.
Meanwhile, authorities are investigating the stabbings of nine people at a Minnesota mall as a potential act of terrorism.
Police did not disclose how they zeroed in on Rahami but were known to be poring over surveillance video.
Officials pulled the five over on the Belt Parkway in Bay Ridge on Sunday night after they came over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from Staten Island.
The New York Times cited a law enforcement official as saying there was no direct evidence yet linking Rahami to Islamic State or al Qaeda.
Sources told the publication that on Saturday-when a bomb detonated in Chelsea, Manhattan, injured 29 people-well-dressed thieves happened on a suitcase around the corner, on West 27th Street.
Late Sunday, five suspicious devices were found near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez called the incidents “clearly an act of terrorism”.
On Saturday night, a shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bomb similar to those used in the Boston Marathon attack exploded in New York’s Chelsea section, wounding 29 people, none seriously. No one was injured. He said two officers were shot and that Rahami was wounded and taken by ambulance to a local hospital.
Rahami, 28, was captured after a gunbattle with police in Linden, N.J.; images shown on local TV shortly before noon Monday showed Rahami on a stretcher with what looks to be a wound on his upper arm or shoulder, with his hands behind his back. But authorities have not drawn any connection between the bloodshed there and the bombings. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the bombs had some similarities but provided no other details. The confrontation sparked a shootout that ended in Rahami’s capture.
A lawyer who represented the Rahami family in the dispute could not be reached for comment on Monday. The train station is a half-mile from Rahami’s residence and police believe he is connected to the bombs.
Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage says county authorities told him that the officers shot in Linden are expected to be OK.
The Rahami family members were hard-working immigrants, pious, friendly and popular for their crispy fried chicken, Nunez said.
– Rahami is now in custody after a shootout with police, sources said.
“He’s always in there. It’s hard when it’s home”, McCann said.
As the suspect in this weekend’s multiple bombings recovered from gunshot wounds received during his arrest, one childhood friend said he is shocked at the allegations.
“We need the facts to be able to piece all this together and to find, was it an individual, was it more than one individual, do these different incidents relate”, the mayor said on CNN. Cuomo said on MSNBC: “Today’s information suggests it may be foreign-related, but we’ll see where it goes”.
Ahmad’s father, Mohammed Rahami, opened the restaurant in 2002, according to court records. By complete chance, the call led to the arrest of the subject of an intense Federal Bureau of Investigation manhunt.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents stopped “a vehicle of interest” in Brooklyn in connection to the Manhattan explosion, the AP reports, citing Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser.
Rahami was not listed on USA counterterrorism databases, three US officials told Reuters.
The Rahamis charged in the lawsuit that they were targeted by neighbours because they are Muslims.
It was a case of ‘Leave the bomb, take the bag, ‘ the newspaper said.
“We don’t know his particular ideology or what his inspiration was or whether he was directed or whether he was inspired.We don’t have any of that”, an official told The New York Times.
A pipe bomb also exploded Saturday in a New Jersey shore town ahead of a 5K run. The race was canceled.
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Another device was found four blocks away and removed to a Bronx firing range for controlled detonation.
