The FBI said Tuesday it assessed Rahami’s activities in 2014 after his father told agents he was concerned about his son’s possible involvement with extremists.
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The journal, however, did not include any mention of the Islamic State.
The charges follow revelations the suspect’s father called him a terrorist two years ago. On Tuesday, Mohammad told reporters he didn’t know what his son was planning.
Rahmani remains hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
He reportedly spent three months in jail but was never prosecuted.
“It’s important for this committee, especially for elected officials, to temper our comments and temper our broad brushes we’re using to paint members of a community of a religion, of a race, of a national origin as criminals or as terrorists”, Acevedo said in his opening statement before the committee.
On Monday, Rahami was repeatedly shot and captured after being spotted in the doorway of a bar in Linden, New Jersey, just four hours after the Federal Bureau of Investigation released his mugshot and sent an emergency cellphone alert to millions of people.
Following the shootout with the authorities from Monday, he was also charged with the murder attempt.
Rahami was suspected of a spate of weekend bombings, including a blast in New York’s crowded Chelsea neighborhood that wounded 29 people, and two in suburban New Jersey that caused no injuries.
NY bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami’s ex-girlfriend has asked a court to give her full custody of their nine-year-old daughter and issue a restraining order against him.
Other passages lauded Osama bin Laden, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, and former al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki.
The “user address” for the phone attached to the unexploded pressure cooker bomb found in Chelsea belonged to Rahami’s residence, the complaint alleges. One of the bombs left in Manhattan didn’t explode.
Federal investigators were probing Rahami’s history of travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and looking for any evidence that he may have been radicalized or trained in bomb-making on those trips.
Federal investigators say the suspect in Saturday’s bombings in NY and New Jersey bought components on eBay and used as triggering devices cell phones purchased from a store 500 meters from an address he once listed as his home. He then visited Afghanistan before returning to the United States.
Five pipe bombs found in Elizabeth and the second device safely defused in Chelsea were covered in the suspect’s fingerprints, the indictment alleged.
His family runs First American Fried Chicken in Elizabeth, the city’s mayor said.
He was also father to a child with his high-school girlfriend. He said by calling the police on Rahami, he is “not a hero”, but “did what any American would do”. One said he arrived from Afghanistan with his family as a young child.
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In 2011, the family sued the city of Elizabeth, and its police department for discrimination and harassment against Muslims stemming from disputes over the restaurant’s hours.
