Police investigating the bombings in NY and New Jersey have been saying for several days they were looking for the men, who they stressed were being sought as potential witnesses in the case, not as suspects. One of the bombs left in Manhattan did not explode. Authorities said it’s possible the men actually disarmed the bomb, accidentally, while removing it from the duffel bag.
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Investigators said they believed the 28-year-old suspect planted bombs in New York City, as well as Elizabeth and Seaside Park, N.J. One of the devices exploded in Manhattan Saturday night, wounding 29 people. Initially charged with attempted murder of police officers, he was held on $5.2 million bail.
This frame from surveillance video released by the New Jersey State Police shows Ahmad Khan Rahami, wanted for questioning Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, in bombings that rocked the Chelsea neighborhood of NY and the Ne.
The news comes hours after law enforcement sources say the suspect’s father alerted authorities about his son’s potentially destructive path.
At the time, Ahmad Khan Rahami was serving time in a local jail, where he remained for roughly three months before the charge was dropped after the brother also recanted, and the family said they would no longer cooperate.
“He just pulled a gun and shot – pow pow – shot twice”, Bains said, before recounting the shoot out that ended in Rahami’s capture.
Police suspect Rahami was also behind a bomb that exploded in New Jersey on Saturday, a device found near the NY blast, and up to six more devices found near a train station.
“The sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets”, the journal declared.
It says the writer lauded Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. -born cleric killed in a 2011 drone strike, and Nidal Hasan, the former U.S. Army major who went on a 2009 rampage at the Fort Hood military installation.
Mohammad Rahami says he had no idea what his son Ahmad was allegedly up to.
The official says the Federal Bureau of Investigation looked into the matter, but that Mohammad Rahami later retracted his comment and said he meant that his son was hanging out with the wrong crowd, including gangs.
The FBI and NYPD are looking for two men who took a suitcase from 27th Street Saturday night – and left behind the bomb that was sitting inside it.
The younger Rahami was not prosecuted in the stabbing; a grand jury declined to indict him.
The father said he had made the comment out of anger and denied feeling as if his son were a terrorist or in any way radicalized, the officials told NBC News.
“What that tells me as a counter terrorism expert that now we can definitively say this was an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack”.
Prosecutors said 31 people were wounded in the Chelsea attack on Saturday.
That issue arose after the Orlando massacre in June, when FBI Director James Comey said agents a few years earlier had looked into the gunman, Omar Mateen, but did not find enough information to pursue charges or keep him under investigation.
Rahami’s sister, the one he allegedly punched during the 2014 incident, is now studying at Rutgers, and wrote on Facebook, “I would like people to respect my family’s privacy and let us have our peace after this tragic time”.
In 2014, while in Islamabad, Pakistan, Rahami sought the assistance of Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) to help bring his pregnant wife to USA after she had issues with her visa and passport.
The judge was also unpersuaded by federal defender claims that federal law enforcement is involved in detaining and questioning Rahami.
The notebook, punctured by a bullet hole and stained with blood, contained references to killing nonbelievers and mentioned American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading al Qaeda propagandist who was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011, the New York Times reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement official. At the time, he was employed by Summit Security, a private contractor.
Five pipe bombs found in Elizabeth and the second devices safely defused in Chelsea were covered in the suspect’s fingerprints, the indictment alleged.
It has been reported that Rahami travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan multiple times in recent years, with police considering whether he had been radicalised overseas. “The instructions for building them is a mere Google search away”, NBC News reported. Sepulveda said he was unaware of any complaints about Rahami’s conduct.
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– Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
