The man suspected of carrying out the weekend bombings in New York City and New Jersey has been charged over the shoot-out with police which led to his arrest.
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A law enforcement official says the Afghan immigrant wanted in connection with explosions in New York City and New Jersey has been taken into custody following a shootout with police officers.
As authorities investigate signs of a possible terror cell, we round up what we know and don’t know.
TOPSHOT – Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers and canine unit check the family restaurant and adjoined apartment of Ahmad Khan Rahami in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on September 19, 2016.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, appeared conscious, his upper right arm bandaged and bloodied, as he was loaded into an ambulance in Linden.
Authorities have not said if Rahami had ties to foreign extremist groups.
A manhunt is underway following a pair of explosions in ny and New Jersey over the weekend, with many travelers to the Northeast waking up to a cell phone alert to be on the lookout for 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami.
“The more we learn with each passing hour is it looks more like terrorism“, de Blasio said in a later interview on NY1 News.
The discovery of the suspicious package comes a day after an explosion in Manhattan injured 29 people, and an unexploded pressure-cooker device was found four blocks away. No one was injured when the pipe bomb that exploded Saturday in Seaside Park before a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors.
President Barack Obama said Americans “must not succumb to fear” after the bombings during a news conference on Monday.
The Guardian reported that the pressure cooker bombs used in New York City were found to have black powder residue which has been identified as Tannerite, which is widely used to mark shots in target shooting.
Authorities are looking for a 28-year-old man in connection with the bombing in Manhattan’s Chelsea Saturday that injured 29 people, and multiple senior law enforcement officials tell NBC News they also suspect the man was involved in pipe bombs going off in Seaside Park and Elizabeth, New Jersey. A forensic examination of the device will be sent to the FBI Laboratory at Quantico, Virginia, police said.
The gun battle began on Monday after a police officer responding to a call about a hooded vagrant asleep in a bar doorway roused him – and quickly recognised the bearded face of perhaps the most wanted man in America.
The shootout came after a weekend of fear and dread in the NY area and beyond.
As the investigations continue, New York City, the nation’s largest city, gets ready to host heads of state from around the world at the annual United Nations General Assembly this week in Manhattan.
FBI agents in Brooklyn stopped “a vehicle of interest in the investigation” of the Manhattan explosion on Sunday night, but few other details have been released.
NJ Transit services were suspended for hours between Newark Liberty Airport and Elizabeth, and Amtrak trains to New Jersey were held at New York Penn Station.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the ongoing investigation.
A childhood friend, Flee Jones, said Rahami had become more religious after returning from a trip to Afghanistan several years ago.
Mr Rahami had not previously been identified as risky, but Elizabeth police knew of his family because of late-night noise and crowd complaints at its halal chicken restaurant. The two men who found the backpack thought it might contain something valuable, but they alerted police when they saw wires and a pipe on the devices, the mayor said.
His last known address, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where a suspicious package near a train station exploded while a bomb squad was trying to disarm it.
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Both bombs in New York were filled with shrapnel and made with pressure cookers, flip phones, Christmas lights and explosive compound, the New York Times reported late Sunday, citing law enforcement officials.
