Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was arrested on Monday (September 19) in Linden, New Jersey following a dramatic gun battle with police after they were summoned by a neighborhood bar owner who thought the bearded man sleeping against his closed tavern’s front door in the pouring rain resembled the bombing suspect.
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His wife allegedly left the United States a few days before the attacks, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.
Investigators believe more people were involved in the NY and New Jersey bombing plots, two US officials told Reuters. But authorities have not drawn any connection between the bloodshed there and the bombings.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case.
In the immediate aftermath of the NY bombing, Mr.de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo were careful to say there was no evidence of a link to worldwide terrorism.
Also Tuesday, investigators disclosed that when Rahami was shot and captured, he had a notebook with him that contained extremist ramblings.
Authorities in New Jersey also believe that Rahami could be linked to the explosion of a bomb on Saturday morning in the New Jersey town of Seaside Park before the start of a footrace in which some 5,000 people were scheduled to compete.
In addition to the blast in Chelsea on Saturday night, an unexploded pressure cooker bomb was found blocks away, and a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey shore town before a charity race. A naturalized citizen from Afghanistan, he was wanted in connection with an explosion near an Elizabeth train station, the second blast in New Jersey since Saturday and followed a bombing Saturday night in Manhattan that injured 29 people.
After zeroing in on Rahami and learning of the auto that had traveled between New Jersey and NY, authorities pulled it over Sunday night after it headed in the direction of Kennedy airport.
Rahami pulled a gun and shot the officer – who was wearing a bulletproof vest – in the torso, and more officers joined in a running gun battle down the street and brought Rahami down, police Capt. James Sarnicki said.
He is said to live in Elizabeth where he and his family, including his father and at least one brother, live above the family business, a fried-chicken shop called First American Fried Chicken.
She provided no other details on her relationship with Ahmad Khan Rahami, except to say she last spoke to him by phone in January. No one was injured there.
In any case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation checked its databases and other sources and closed the inquiry in a matter of weeks after seeing nothing tying Rahami to terrorism, three law enforcement officials said.
Rahami lived with his family above their fried-chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, and his relatives have clashed with the city over closing times and noise complaints they said were tinged with anti-Muslim sentiment.
William Sweeney Jr., the FBI’s assistant director in NY, said there was no indication so far that the bombings were the work of a larger terror cell.
He called on Americans to show the world “we will never give in to fear”. The lawsuit was terminated in 2012 after Mohammad Rahami pleaded guilty to blocking police from enforcing the restrictions on the restaurant. Still, some of the family restaurant’s customers said Rahami was more likely to talk about his interest in cars than to mention faith. He declined to say whether they might later face charges. He’s a very friendly guy, that’s what’s so scary.
A woman who had a child with the man suspected of setting off bombs in NY and New Jersey has asked a court to give her full custody of their son.
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One of the five devices found at the Elizabeth train station exploded while a bomb squad robot tried to disarm it. MacArthur says it was a stroke of luck that no one was hurt.
