It contained mentions of pipe bombs and pressure cooker bombs – the devices that failed to kill any victims in NY and New Jersey on Saturday – as well as the sentence “in the streets they plan to run a mile”.
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Ahmad Khan Rahami provided investigators with a wealth of clues that led to his arrest about 50 hours after the first explosion, according to three law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.
And while the complaint lists multiple pieces of evidence connecting Rahami to the attacks-including recovered fingerprints and surveillance footage-it also provides a chilling look into the online life of the man accused of injuring 29 people last weekend.
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.
The bombings and the planting of explosive devices in NY and New Jersey are “being investigated as an act of terror”, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday during a speech in Lexington, Kentucky.
The White House said yesterday it appeared that the bombings were “an act of terrorism” as an investigation continued in to whether Rahami had accomplices, or if he picked up militant Islamic views during trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And the complaints said in his bloodied journal – damaged by shots from his gun battle with police – he fumed that the USA government was slaughtering Muslim holy warriors and alluded to plans for revenge.
The notebook was discovered with a bullet hole, which may have occurred during the shoot-out while he was being detained.
“A lot of technology involved in this, but a lot of good, old-fashioned police work, too, ” New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Monday. Investigators searched the building on Monday, Bollwage said.
Authorities did not offer any immediate information on the possible motives of Rahami, whom Union County prosecutors charged with five counts of attempted murder in the first degree and two second-degree weapons charges.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Rahami had a lawyer who could comment on the charges.
“American Muslims, like all Americans reject extremism and violence, and seek a safe and secure nation”, the Council on American-Muslim Relations, the largest Muslim group in the USA, said in a statement Monday after the arrest of the suspect.
The bombing spread fear across the NY area and revived anxiety about homegrown terrorism nationwide. “While New York was within its rights to use the WEA system following the bombings, the incident raises intersecting questions about the over-criminalization of people of color [and] how they are treated by law enforcement”.
US Investigators yesterday continued to probe who knew about the alleged NY bomber’s terror plot – after it emerged that his wife and mum fled the country before the attacks.
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. Why did he make lengthy trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan?
But that positive outcome, Williams says, masks the many risks inherent in publicizing the pursuit of Rahami.
“He’s a very friendly guy”, patron Ryan McCann said. Another bomb that exploded on the New Jersey shore did not hurt anyone but forced the cancellation of a Marine Corps charity race.
U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.), said the visa request from Ahmad Rahami to bring his wife to America from Pakistan at that time was one of thousands his office has dealt with and it did not seem out of the ordinary.
In 2013, two brothers planted pressure-cooker bombs packed with shrapnel near the marathon’s finish line.
He is thought to have put a rucksack containing five IEDs in a bin at a New Jersey train station.
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FBI personnel search an address during an investigation into Ahmad Khan Rahami in New Jersey.
