U.S. prosecutors have formally charged Ahmad Rahami, the suspect who was arrested after weekend bombings in NY and New Jersey in which 29 people were injured.
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Ahmad Khan Rahami, a USA citizen born in Afghanistan, was charged by federal officials in two states Tuesday with planting bombs in NY, and at a military charity run and train station in New Jersey. In a handwritten journal, he warned that bombs would resound in the streets and prayed he’d be martyred rather than caught. But Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., who received a classified briefing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Rahami was not cooperating; that could also be a reflection of his injuries.
Though authorities have not described a motive in the attack, the complaint revealed that Rahami allegedly wrote anti-American screeds in a journal and praised al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, American-born al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and the gunman in the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, Nidal Hasan.
Rahmani remains in hospital with gunshot wounds.
The FBI appealed for the public’s help Wednesday in locating two unidentified men who removed an explosive device from a piece of luggage planted just a few blocks from where a separate bomb detonated Saturday night in NY, injuring 31 people.
Video found on a family member’s mobile phone dated two days before the bombings showed Rahami lighting a fuse and igniting incendiary material packed in a partially buried cylinder.
Prosecutors plan to bring Rahami to federal court in Manhattan “in the near future”, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said. Federal investigators say the bag was left by New York-region bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami.
“It does appear this was an act of terrorism and that’s why the investigation is being conducted the way that it is”, Josh Earnest, White House spokesman said.
Patton said in a letter to a federal judge Tuesday night that Rahami has been held and questioned by federal law enforcement agents since his arrest. During the inquiry, the father backed away from talk of terrorism and told investigators that he simply meant his son was hanging out with the wrong crowd, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The FBI never interviewed Rahami himself and a grand jury declined to file charges against him.
“But they checked, nearly two months, and they say, ‘He’s OK, he’s clear, he’s not terrorist.’ Now they say he’s a terrorist”, the father said.
“He sent an email to my office from Pakistan, and he had said to me that he had been in Pakistan since April 2013 and we received the email on March 2014”, Sires told CNN. Asked whether he thought his son was a terrorist, he said: “No”.
“In this case, we know [Rahami] traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan on three occasions”. No one was injured.
US prosecutors said carried out twin bombings on Saturday in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood injuring 29 people and along the route of a US Marine Corps run in the New Jersey town of Seaside Park.
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Officials say so far they have found no connection between Rahami and any militant groups, raising the possibility that the weekend bomb attacks could be another lone-wolf-style operation.
