The Associated Press reported that Mohammad Rahami “said he meant that his son was hanging out with the wrong crowd, including gangs”.
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He was also father to a child with his American high school girlfriend, who is now requesting full custody, filing court documents that list Rahami as “under terrorist investigation”.
Asia Bibi Rahami is cooperating with investigators, according to a USA official. One of the officials, who specialises in counter-terrorism, said the “secondary” screening included asking Rahami where he had gone and for what goal.
Rahami was arrested Monday following a shootout with police in New Jersey.
The suspect held on suspicion of carrying out weekend bomb attacks in NY and New Jersey is in critical but stable condition in a hospital, police said Tuesday.
Rahami and his family live above their restaurant – called First American Fried Chicken – and the family has clashed with the city over closing times and noise complaints, which the Rahamis said in a lawsuit were tinged with anti-Muslim sentiment.
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said there is no indication that a “terror cell” was involved.
Officials say so far they have found no connection between Rahami and any militant groups, including the Taliban or Islamic State (IS). 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 was born in Afghanistan, and he became a naturalized US citizen and lived with his family in Elizabeth, a working-class industrial city about 17 miles from New York City. He was captured in Linden, New Jersey, after he was discovered sleeping in the doorway of a bar.
Even before the 2014 incident, Rahami was accused in February 2012 of violating a domestic violence restraining order, according to court filings in his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Authorities said in news conference Monday that they are “not actively” seeking anyone else at this time.
Nor were Afghan intelligence officials aware of either Rahami or his family, said Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, director-general of the Afghan National Directorate of Security.
Rahami is considered the prime suspect in a string of bombings that began in the quiet shore town of Seaside Park, New Jersey, on Saturday, and continued in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan and in Rahami’s native Elizabeth, where authorities found a bookbag stocked with five improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Then a shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bomb exploded Saturday night in New York’s Chelsea section, wounding 29 people, none seriously. Evidence from the cell phone on the pressure cooker also led to Rahami’s identification.
One of the five pipe bombs found near the train station in Elizabeth was detonated accidentally by a bomb-detecting robot on Monday.
Rahami was identified Sunday afternoon through a fingerprint, a senior law enforcement official said. Federal prosecutors said they were still weighing up charges over the bombings. His uncovered 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 the day of the bombing, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the case.
New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said police will focus on other parts of the investigation including whether or not he worked alone and what his motivations were.
“They were a very nice family”, said Devin Sanchez, 20, who said he was a good friend of the suspect’s younger brother.
He is believed to have gotten married while there, and he later solicited a New Jersey state assemblyman to help him bring his pregnant wife to the U.S. The wife was apparently told by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad that she had to wait until her baby was born.
A third explosion early Monday in Elizabeth near where Rahami was living has not been attributed by authorities to him. Rahami made several trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent years, CNN and other media reported.
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The restaurant’s employees were serious and businesslike, rarely interacting with customers more than they had to, said Josh Sanchez, 24, and Jessica Casanova, 23, who called themselves frequent customers. At the time, he said, the consulate advised Rahami to travel to Karachi, Pakistan, but Rahami said it was too unsafe.
