The arrest just hours after police issued a bulletin and photo of Rahami, a naturalized US citizen from Afghanistan who lived with Muslim family in an apartment in Elizabeth, New Jersey, over a fried-chicken restaurant owned by his father.
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Police in Linden, New Jersey, which neighbors Elizabeth about 20 miles (32 km) west of NY, captured Rahami after responding to a complaint by a bar owner of a man sleeping in the closed establishment’s hallway.
Five suspicious devices were found near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey late Sunday.
The New York City Police department released Rahami’s photo on Monday, and Mayor De Blasio said he could be “armed and dangerous”.
“We’re going to have more security personnel than ever assembled over this next week during the UN General Assembly”, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on CNN. An unexploded pressure-cooker device was also found four blocks away.
Ahmad Khan Rahami- the same man wanted in connection with Saturday’s bombing in NY – has been arrested in connection with the explosion in New Jersey.
Based on what is now known, there was also no connection to the incident earlier Saturday in Seaside Heights, N.J., where a pipe bomb exploded near a Marine charity run, de Blasio said.
A bomb squad robot tried to disable one of the devices, but it cut into one of the wires, causing the blast.
Shortly before noon Monday, a local New York City area journalist reported a gunman firing shots at cars in Linden, New Jersey, “not far” from a New Jersey train statin where a series of small explosions were reproted. The St. Cloud police chief said the man reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if he or she was Muslim before attacking. The assistant director of the FBI’s field office in New York, William Sweeney Jr., said “there is no indication that there’s a cell” in the area.
Officials said they now can not identify any definitive links between the three attacks which left 29 injured in Chelsea and nine injured at the St. Cloud, Minn. mall.
Authorities questioned several people early Monday after a auto stop in New York City as they worked to determine if there is a connection between several incidents involving explosive devices in two days.
At least 29 people were injured after the explosion outside a home for the blind in the Chelsea district of NY. Speaking at a news conference near the scene of the blast in Chelsea, he said, “We have no credible and specific threat at this moment”.
The Afghan immigrant who authorities believe planted bombs in New Jersey and NY this weekend was captured Monday after a dramatic gun battle with police that was sparked when officers found him sleeping in the doorway of a bar.
No injuries were reported in the blast, and there was no damage to surrounding buildings.
That device – described by a law enforcement official as a pressure cooker with wires and a cellphone attached to it – was removed early Sunday by a bomb squad robot and was being examined by forensic experts.
Authorities investigating the New York explosion case were searching on Monday for a 28-year-old New Jersey man who may be armed and risky, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
A federal law enforcement official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, told USA TODAY that surveillance footage shows what appears to be the same person moving devices into place at the site of the explosion, and at the location where the undetonated pressure cooker was discovered.
“The explosives detonated in New York City, that was me”, the posting reads.
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On Sunday night, FBI and NYPD investigators stopped a vehicle of interest being sought in the bombing investigation, an FBI spokeswoman said.
