Ahmed Khan Rahami, the suspect in several bomb attacks in NY and New Jersey, came on the FBI’s radar two years ago after his father notified the Bureau of concerns, according to a law enforcement source.
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He did not elaborate on why he made the calls. Upon a closer look, it turns out that Rahami’s own father had allegedly called him a “terrorist”, and had told authorities that his son was associating with bad people. The official, and other US security sources, said Rahami underwent additional security screening upon returning from overseas but passed on every occasion.
When these types of complaints come in, they usually go into the FBI’s Guardian Threat Tracking System, which prompts a limited level of investigation and surveillance.
According to the agency, the same investigative process was applied to Rahami as to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, after Russian intelligence sources told their U.S. counterparts he had links to Islamist terrorist groups in Daghestan, and to Omar Mateen, the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida earlier this summer. Ahmed Rahami was arrested by New Jersey police over a fight with one of his brothers, in which he stabbed him.
The FBI then opened a so-called “guardian file” on Rahami, initiating a process to determine whether he had links to terrorism or other criminal activity, and whether a formal investigation should be opened.
“An official, when asked about the inquiry, said the father made the comment out of anger at his son”, The Times reported. But the father later retracted the claim and told investigators he just meant his son was hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Rahami has been charged with five counts of attempted murder of police officers during the shootout that led to his arrest.
Rahami, who remained hospitalised after a shootout with police, was charged in two federal courts – one in Manhattan and another in Newark – with nine counts stemming from the attacks, including using weapons of mass destruction and bombing a public place, and could face up to life in prison.
Ahmad Rahami’s brazen shootout with police was captured on cell phone, while investigators say his bombings in NY and New Jersey were captured on surveillance video.
She was born in Pakistan, and married Rahami there in 2011. Investigators found no evidence to prompt a full-scale investigation into the son, and the initial investigation was closed without action, the law enforcement official said. A grand jury opted not to indict him.
Born in Afghanistan, he worked at his family’s fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and is a United States citizen.
– Rahami started talking to law enforcement this morning.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, is shown in Union County, New Jersey, in a US Prosecutor’s Office photo released on September 19, 2016. Authorities: the Manhattan explosion, an unexploded pressure cooker device blocks away, a pipe bomb blast at a Jersey shore town and five explosive devices at a New Jersey train station.
Electronic toll records show a auto to which he had access was driven from New Jersey to Manhattan and back to New Jersey the day of the bombing, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the case.
Andre Almeida, a customer at the restaurant for the past eight years, said he noticed when Rahami stopped wearing Western clothes after returning from Afghanistan and started wearing “a little more ethnic clothing”. At 8:30 p.m. that night 29 people were injured when a pressure cooker bomb exploded in a Chelsea, with another unexploded bomb found less than hour later.
Rahami first came to the United States in 1995 as a child, after his father arrived seeking asylum, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2011, according to a law enforcement official who reviewed his travel and immigration record.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
