Sires says there were complications because the wife’s Pakistani passport had expired, and when she went to get a new one, officials learned she was 35 weeks pregnant.
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Sires said he doesn’t know what happened next.
In 2014, the FBI opened up an “assessment”, the least intrusive form of an FBI inquiry, based on comments from his father after a domestic dispute, the bureau said in a statement.
However, ABC News reported that Mohammad Rahami was concerned “that his son was interacting with “bad people” overseas and a concerned citizen in the neighborhood told authorities that Rahami’s associates may have been trying to procure explosives”.
Electronic toll records show a auto to which he had access was driven from New Jersey to Manhattan and back to New Jersey the day of the bombing, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the case.
Rahami was a frequent traveler to his native Afghanistan and nearby Pakistan, where he is believed to have married.
According to reports, both Rahami’s wife, whose name hasn’t been released, and his mother left the country for the Middle East shortly before the attacks. But asked whether he thought his son was a terrorist, the father said: “No”.
The FBI first became aware of Rahami in the summer of 2014, when local law enforcement contacted the agency’s New Jersey field office about him, the sources said. A grand jury declined to indict him, despite a warning from the arresting officer that Rahami was probably “a danger to himself or others”. The FBI concluded that Ahmad Khan Rahami had no ties to terrorism at the time, and the father’s comment was dismissed as being made out of anger. At the time, he was employed by Summit Security, a private contractor.
The incident took place a five months after Mr. Rahami returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials said.
AP global security chief Danny Spriggs said he learned this week that Rahami worked there and often engaged colleagues in long political discussions, expressing sympathy for the Taliban and disdain for US military action in Afghanistan.
In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman on Tuesday wouldn’t disclose what type of visa Mr. Rahami was able to obtain for his wife to allow her to move to the US from Pakistan in recent years.
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His dramatic arrest came just hours after officials plastered his photo on a wanted poster, saying Rahami was wanted for questioning in connection with Saturday’s blast that injured 29 people in New York City and an explosion that occurred near a charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey, earlier that day. Sepulveda said he was unaware of any complaints about Rahami’s conduct.
