Ahmad Khan Rahami is taken into custody after a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey, Monday.
Advertisement
The FBI said Rahami was wanted in connection with a pipe bomb blast in Seaside Park, New Jersey on Saturday morning and the detonation of a pressure-cooker bomb in Manhattan that evening that injured 29 people.
Three law enforcement officials tell The Associated Press Ahmad Khan Rahami provided investigators with a wealth of clues that led to his arrest 50 hours after the first blast.
Earlier on Monday, while identifying the suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalised USA citizen from Afghanistan, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he should be considered armed and unsafe.
An officer arrived and confronted Rahami, who pulled a gun and fired, authorities said.
No one was injured in the other blasts. Authorities said neither officers’ injuries were life-threatening.
No other suspects are being sought in relation to the bombings, officials have said.
The attacks began on Saturday morning when a pipe bomb on the route of a military fun run in Seaside Park, New Jersey, exploded.
Police in Linden received a call about a man sleeping in a doorway and when one officer, who recognized the person as the bombing suspect, tried to rouse him, Rahami opened fire and hit the officer in the abdomen. I think we’re going to know a lot more in the course of the day.
But there is “no indication that there is a cell operating in the area or in the city”, Sweeney, the FBI official, said, adding that “the investigation is ongoing”.
The location of the bag was not far from where Rahami lived with his family above their fried-chicken restaurant, and his relatives have clashed with the city over closing times and noise complaints they said were tinged with anti-Muslim sentiment. The search did not immediately reveal evidence that explosives had been assembled there, the federal law enforcement official told USA TODAY.
Federal prosecutors weighed Tuesday whether to bring additional charges linked to the city and seaside bombings, even as investigators sifted through surveillance video and other clues seeking to determine whether the lone suspect – now in a New Jersey hospital bed – had wider links in plotting the attacks in NY and New Jersey.
Officials are working to determine whether other people may have assisted in the alleged planning, construction and the selection of targets.
The explosion in Chelsea rocked the neighborhood and blew windows out of buildings. As law enforcement cordoned off the area, investigators found a pressure cooker on West 27th Street four blocks away. Trump said current anti-terrorism efforts are insufficient at home and overseas, and he blamed President Barack Obama and Clinton, who served as Obama’s first secretary of state.
The handgun was recovered at the scene and Rahami was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery, officials said. It was not clear Tuesday whether Rahami had made statements to investigators.
The explosion on Saturday took place in Chelsea, one of the main gay neighborhoods in NY, but it’s not clear if that factored into his plans. No one was hurt.
In a Facebook post Monday, a family member asked for privacy.
On Monday, a device found in a backpack near the Elizabeth train station exploded while a bomb squad robot was trying to disarm it, authorities said. The suspect also reportedly left a note with the device in which he praised two Islamists who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013. He now awaits federal charges.
“The speculation is that someone was disposing of evidence because law enforcement, we believe, was getting close”, he said. Surveillance footage released later showed two scavengers discovering a suitcase containing the bomb.
Advertisement
Fifteen years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, officials say lone-wolf attacks perpetrated by individuals who may be inspired by IS or Al-Qaeda propaganda are the greatest terror threat to the homeland. A ruling later favoured the city, saying the restaurant was “disruptive in the city for many, many years”.
