Neighbors in Elizabeth, New Jersey, are reeling after learning the 28-year-old NY and New Jersey bombing suspect lived in their community.
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Rahami was arrested on Monday in Linden, New Jersey, not far from Elisabeth, where his family lived above their storefront First American Fried Chicken restaurant.
Rahami was wounded in a shootout with police and is in a hospital in New Jersey.
Officer Angel Padilla will visit Linden School No. 5 on Thursday. Hammer was grazed in the head by a bullet or shrapnel.
Asia Bibi Rahami, the wife of the man suspected in bombing incidents last weekend in NY and New Jersey, is now out of the country.
The FBI says it did not find links to extremism during its past investigation of Rahami.
A New Jersey imam spoke against violence and in support of law enforcement during the first Friday prayer service since a local man was charged in the New Jersey and New York City bombings.
He says Ahmad Khan Rahami “seems like many suspects who come into contact with the system at various times” and was handled “to the extent. that law would allow”. The FBI, which had opened what’s called an assessment, dropped the case.
Federal terrorism charges were filed against Rahami on Tuesday night.
Federal prosecutors in NY and New Jersey have charged him in a series of explosions, including one in Manhattan that injured more than 30 people. “These bombs, although they were somewhat complex, could be assembled in a relatively confined area and with a limited amount of information in front of you”, Timothy Gallagher, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Newark, told NBC News.
Other federal charges were expected to be filed Tuesday evening in New Jersey, according to reports.
The man suspected of attempting a series of terror attacks in the U.S. claimed he was inspired by Isis in a blood-soaked journal discovered after he was shot by police.
Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) said Mr. Rahami contacted him in 2014 to help with his wife’s immigration paperwork, but the congressman said he didn’t know when she entered the country. It was denied because the woman was 35 weeks pregnant.
Finding such people in advance is exceedingly hard, because “we don’t yet have much in the way of patterns to go by in this and other examples”, he said.
Ehsan said Rahami told him that his father took his passport while he was sleeping.
The disclosure of the father’s contacts with the Federal Bureau of Investigation raises questions about whether there was anything more law enforcement could have done at the time to determine whether Rahami had terrorist aspirations.
Ms. Rahami isn’t suspected of any wrongdoing, and a USA official told CNN that she is cooperating with authorities.
David Patton, the head of the federal public defenders office in NY, asked on Wednesday to be appointed as Rahami’s attorney and to be allowed to meet with him, saying the suspect has not had the advice of a lawyer thus far.
Investigators zeroed in on Rahami after he was seen in surveillance footage taken Saturday night amid the mayhem in Chelsea.
The blast Rahami allegedly set off was so powerful that it sent a dumpster flying more than 150 feet down the sidewalk and shattered windows more than a block away.
The FBI says the image was captured on closed circuit television recordings between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues.
A Linden, New Jersey, police officer injured in a shootout with a man suspected of setting off bombs in NY and New Jersey is headed to a school to thank students for their well wishes.
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The official, and other US security sources, said Rahami underwent additional security screening upon returning from overseas but passed each time. Another section included a reference to “pipe bombs” and a “pressure cooker bomb” and declared: “In the streets they plan to run a mile”, an apparent reference to one of the blast sites, a charity run in Seaside Park, New Jersey.
