Authorities have identified a suspect in the Manhattan explosion case as a 28-year-old New Jersey resident of Afghan descent who may be armed and risky, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday.
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The New York Police Department says 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami is being sought for questioning in New York City explosion.
“We don’t believe at this time that there’s any evidence connecting it to the attacks in NY or Minnesota”, Christie said on CNN.
“The crudity of the devices in all three cases certainly doesn’t point to any group that’s been developing (improvised explosive devices) for years”, said a US official involved in the investigation who requested anonymity to discuss the inquiry.
Cell phones were discovered at the site of both bombings, but no Tannerite residue was identified in the New Jersey bomb remnants, in which a black powder was detected, said the official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to comment on an ongoing investigation.
The device detonated in New Jersey’s Elizabeth after five devices were found in one bag late Sunday near a train station on the New Jersey Transit railway line, according to the city’s mayor, Christian Bollwage.
“In the coming hours we are going to be able to say a lot more about what happened here”, de Blasio said. The pressure cooker later was found by state police troopers after a similar device exploded nearby, injuring 29 people.
“I suspect there may be a foreign connection [to the bombings in New York and New Jersey]”, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, as cited by CBS. The New Jersey race was cancelled and no one was injured.
The discovery of the suspicious package comes a day after an explosion in Manhattan injured 29 people, and an unexploded pressure-cooker device was found four blocks away. He is a naturalized citizen from Afghanistan.
Bureau investigators stopped the auto, which an FBI spokeswoman referred to as a “vehicle of interest in the investigation”, on Sunday night, the Associated Press reports.
Bollage said that one explanation for the device was that someone concerned about law enforcement had discarded it into a trash can.
Elizabeth is about 16 miles southwest of New York City, and is closer to the location of the Chelsea bombing than Seaside Park, New Jersey, where another explosive was found over the weekend.
Authorities are also looking into an alleged manifesto posted on Tumblr which is said to claim responsibility for the bomb blast in Chelsea.
Donald Trump called for using “whatever lawful methods are available” to get information from Rahami, mocked the fact that he would receive quality medical care and legal representation, and called for profiling foreigners who look like they could have connections to terrorism or certain Mideastern countries. He called on Americans to show the world “we will never give in to fear”. He said at first he thought it was thunder and lightning.
Ryan McCann, of Elizabeth, said that he often ate at the restaurant and recently began seeing Rahami working there more.
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Federal Bureau of Investigation agents conducted a traffic stop Sunday just off the Verrazano bridge in connection to Saturday’s explosion in New York City, the law enforcement agency announced in a tweet.
