Millions of people living in the NY region received a cell phone alert this morning that named 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami as the man that law enforcement agencies believe is connected to the bombing that injured 29 people.
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Investigators remained tight-lipped about details of the investigation, which officials called “very active” after the suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami of Elizabeth, New Jrrsey, was captured in nearby Linden on Monday.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was arrested after a shootout Monday in Linden, was not part of the lawsuit. CNN footage showed Rahami being wheeled to an ambulance after being shot.
Rahami and his family live above their restaurant, First American Fried Chicken, and the family has clashed with the city over closing times and noise complaints, which the Rahamis said in a lawsuit were motivated by dislike of Muslims.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized USA citizen from Afghanistan with an address in Elizabeth, New Jersey, should be considered armed and unsafe, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in one of a series of TV appearances just minutes after the photo was released.
But with suspect Ahmad Khan Rahman in custody on Monday, de Blasio said: “We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror”.
Authorities had been questioning several people as they try to determine any possible connection between an explosion in New York’s bustling Chelsea neighborhood, an unexploded pressure-cooker device found blocks away and a pipe bomb blast in New Jersey.
Police suspect Rahami was also behind a bomb that exploded in a New Jersey beach town on Saturday, as well as leaving the device found on the sidewalk after the NY blast.
“In the course of rendering one of the devices safe, it detonated”, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said, adding that nobody was injured. At 11 p.m., NY police and news helicopters hovered over the scene beneath a full harvest moon.
William Sweeney Jr., the FBI’s assistant director in NY, said there are no indications Rahami was on law enforcement’s radar at the time of the bombings.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.
The explosions came days before world leaders prepared to gather at the United Nations in NY for the annual General Assembly.
The man in the Minnesota incident, who has not been officially identified, was described a “soldier of the Islamic State”, the militant group’s news agency said on Sunday. Rahami pulled out a gun and shot the officer, identifed by the Linden mayor’s office as Angel Padilla, in the abdomen.
New York City sent out an emergency alert to expect extensive traffic delays in the area of 23rd St. between 6th and 7th Aves. and to expect train service delays/cancelations, and street closures in the vicinity.The FDNY confirmed they responded to 135 West 23rd Street.
“At this point, we see no connection between that incident and what happened here in NY and New Jersey”, Obama, who was in NY for the United Nations meeting, told reporters.
Five people who had been taken into custody in Brooklyn late on Sunday for questioning after being observed by law enforcement officers at a location associated with Rahami were released without charges, Sweeney said.
The raid in Elizabeth came hours after an explosive device left near a train station there blew up when a bomb squad robot cut a wire on the mechanism.
Meanwhile, the federal authorities were also investigating whether the NY blast had any links to the suspicious backpack, containing “multiple explosive devices”, that was found at a train station in New Jersey today.
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Cuomo says: “Today’s information suggests it may be foreign related, but we’ll see where it goes”. On Sunday, five explosive devices were discovered in a trash can at an Elizabeth train station. “The robot that went in to disarm it, cut a wire and it exploded”, Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage said.
