The two men, who took the bag but left the improvised bomb on the street, are not suspects, officials said, but investigators want to interview them as witnesses.
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The bureau’s NY office released a photo of the two men Wednesday, saying it was taken between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday on 27th between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
A few minutes later, two men pass by the luggage and appear to admire it, police said.
One video exclusively obtained by NBC 4 NY shows him wheeling a piece of luggage to the 27th Street site, presumably with the bomb inside.
According to the criminal complaint by Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Peter Frederick Licata, Rahami was responsible for bombs constructed out of a pressure cooker and placed in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood on Saturday, as well as pipe bombs in New Jersey’s Seaside Park and Elizabeth, the Guardian reported. That was the same hour that a device exploded on W 23rd Street, injuring 29 people. Rahami was arrested after he was shot during a gun battle with police in Linden, New Jersey on Monday morning.
Because the bomb never detonated, unlike the other that was planted and wounded 31 people, it still bore 12 of Rahami’s fingerprints, effectively tying him to the terror plot, prosecutors said.
But in Wednesday’s poster it said agents are “interested in speaking to these individuals and recovering the luggage”.
“I respect that the press may have many questions, however, my priority remains with the safety and well being of my child”, the woman said. They say he vowed in a handwritten jihad journal that “the sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets”. He didn’t think anything of it, he says, but the criminal complaint against Rahami says he ignited a device near his Elizabeth residence two days before the Saturday bombings in Manhattan and Seaside Park.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Rahami will be moved to NY to face federal charges in the near future.. The federal complaint against Rahami paints a chilling portrait of a man championing jihad and looking to become a martyr.
“Death to your oppression”, the journal ended.
Still, NYPD commissioner James O’Neill said today that authorities are still trying to determine if Rahami acted alone or he had accomplices.
Reuters reported both government and pro-Taliban sources in Pakistan said there was no evidence Rahami had met with prominent Taliban or religious leaders when he was there.
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Ahmad Rahami, an Afghanistan-born US citizen, was shot and severely injured during his arrest Monday.
