After an intensive manhunt that included police reaching out to millions of residents in the New York City metropolitan area, authorities on Monday captured the man they believe is responsible for an explosion in Manhattan this weekend that injured more than two dozen people.
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His name is Ahmad Khan Rahami, and millions of New Yorkers learned about him at the same time Monday morning, when authorities sent out a wanted notice across the region’s wireless Emergency Alert system.
Born in Afghanistan, The New York Times is describing Rahami as a “naturalized citizen”.
A bar owner in Linden, NJ spotted a man sleeping in his doorway Monday morning and called police.
The New Jersey State Police say they believe Rahami is also connected to the pipe bombs found near an Elizabeth train station.
In addition to the blast that injured 29 people in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday, an unexploded pressure cooker bomb was found blocks away, and a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey shore town before a charity race. No one was injured in that blast.
Late Sunday, five suspicious devices were found near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in television interviews that President Barack Obama, who is already in NY, was being briefed on the case.
Cellphones were discovered at the site of both the NY and New Jersey bombings, but no Tannerite residue was identified in the New Jersey bomb remnants, in which a black powder was detected, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to comment on the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Reports said the five were detained together in a vehicle that was stopped on a highway in New York’s Brooklyn borough and were taken to an Federal Bureau of Investigation building in Manhattan for questioning. The campaign of GOP presidential nominee (and NY native) Donald Trump.
The FBI put out a wanted poster for a man they want to question in connection to Saturday’s Chelsea bombing – after taking a group of men in for questioning during a auto stop on the Belt Parkway Sunday night, according to reports and FBI officials.
Mr Sweeney said there is no indication Rahami was on their “radar” for links to terror groups, though he had been reported to police over domestic violence in the past, he said. Gov. Andrew Cuomo had said earlier that it didn’t appear to be linked to global terrorism.
“Folks around here, they don’t get scared, they’re tough, they’re resilient, they go about their business every single day”, he said. The officer was wearing a bullet-proof vest, said Linden Police Captain James Sarnicki. The man then began firing as he ran down the street and police shot him in the leg.
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Meanwhile, authorities are investigating the stabbings of nine people at a Minnesota mall as a potential act of terrorism.
