Then a shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bomb exploded Saturday night in New York’s Chelsea section, wounding 29 people, none seriously. While the investigation of the Chelsea blast continues, only one block of West 23rd Street remains closed, between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue.
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Sunday evening, the Federal Bureau of Investigation took several people into custody with a possible connection to the bombing in Chelsea, New York City.
Also on Monday morning, a federal law enforcement official said BBs and ball bearings were among the pieces of metal that appeared to be packed into both pressure cooker bombs in NY.
Chief Joseph Fox of NY transit police said subway service was restored to all stations in Chelsea, although the northeast stairway at 23rd Street remained closed.
Thousands of people were milling around one of Manhattan’s most fashionable areas when the blast ripped through the area shortly after 8.30 p.m. local time.
Rahami’s last known address was listed in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and federal authorities conducted a raid there Monday at an apartment above a fried chicken restaurant operated by Rahami’s father. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, New York City: We have so more much information obviously than we even had a few hours ago.
Around the time Rahami was captured, President Barack Obama was in NY on a previously scheduled visit for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage said the devices were found in a bag in a trash can by two men who reported seeing wires and a pipe coming out of the package.
The announcement came as the New York Police Department said authorities were searching for 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami in connection with the bombing. It is unclear whether the Elizabeth explosion is connected. He is now said to be undergoing surgery.
“The City wanted a way to update New Yorkers quickly with official information after several incidents occurred in 2007, such as: tornadoes, a steam pipe explosion, and crane collapses”. The race was canceled and no one was injured.
As many as five potential explosive devices tumbled out of the backpack when it was emptied, Bollwage said.
The paper also said, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, that federal authorities detained and were questioning five people with possible links to the NY bombing.
Hours before violence broke out in Chelsea, a pipe bomb placed in a garbage can exploded near the Seaside Park Semper Fi 5K Charity Run route. Meanwhile, five other suspects were detained by police near the Verrazano Bridge on September 18, although it still has yet to be confirmed whether or not they’re connected to either attack.
Earlier on Monday, New York police had released a photo of Rahami and said they wanted to question him about the explosion Saturday night in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood as well as a blast earlier that day in Seaside Park, New Jersey.
The FBI is carrying out an investigation and working to detonate four other devices found at the station. Cell phones were discovered at the site of both bombings. Neither officer is thought to have life-threatening injuries, he said.
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What we know: ISIS said that a man who stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall on Saturday evening was a “solider of the Islamic state”, according to the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq.
