The revelations about Rahami’s past brushes with the law came on a day that it was learned that his father had contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2014 to express concerns that his son was a terrorist – an assertion the father later retracted.
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Federal investigators interviewed Mohammad Rahami in 2014 after a neighbor heard the father scream, “You are a terrorist!” at his son, who had just allegedly punched his sister and stabbed his brother in the leg during a fight, senior law enforcement officials tell NBC News.
Rahami was wounded and taken away in an ambulance after a shootout in New Jersey yesterday.
The man suspected of planting bombs in NY and New Jersey may have aimed to inflict carnage incognito, but he didn’t succeed for long in concealing his identity.
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. Justice Department guidelines restrict the types of actions agents may take; they can not, for instance, record phone calls without obtaining a higher level of approval or developing more grounds for suspicion.
Rahami, a USA citizen born in Afghanistan, remained hospitalized Tuesday after surgery for a gunshot wound to his leg.
Rahami had emailed U.S. Representative Albio Sires of New Jersey, whose congressional district includes Elizabeth, in 2014 from Pakistan, raising concerns about his wife’s visa issues, said Mark Gyorfy, a spokesman for the congressman.
The FBI said it does not yet know why the Chelsea neighborhood was targeted.
Ahmad Khan Rahami is taken into custody after a shootout with police Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, in Linden, N.J. Rahami was not prosecuted in the stabbing; a grand jury declined to indict him.
William Sweeney Jr., the FBI’s assistant director in NY, said there was no indication so far that the bombings were the work of a larger terror cell.
The official, and other U.S. security sources, said Rahami underwent additional security screening upon returning from overseas but passed each time.
Two other pipe bombs at the Marines race in Seaside Park failed to detonate, as did a pressure cooker device in Chelsea. No one was injured. The New Jersey pipe bomb contained black powder as the explosive, while the pressure cooker that went off on 23rd Street contained a mixture of ammonium nitrate (or fertilizer) and aluminum powder.
Rahami, who is a USA citizen, was identified as a suspect after a fingerprint was found on one of the devices that failed to detonate.
Rahami provided investigators with a wealth of clues that led to his arrest just 50 hours after the first explosion, according to three law enforcement officials. His face was clearly captured by surveillance cameras near the spot of the blast.
Electronic toll records show a auto to which he had access was driven from New Jersey to Manhattan and back to New Jersey on the day of the bombing, according to the officials.
He underwent surgery and was in “critical but stable” condition, NY police chief James O’Neill said Tuesday – meaning that he is expected to survive his injuries – but has not yet been interrogated.
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Officials pulled the five other New Jersey men over on the Belt Parkway in Bay Ridge Sunday night after they drove over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from Staten Island.
