Ahmad Khan Rahami, a U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, was charged by federal officials in two states on Tuesday with planting bombs in NY, and at a military charity run and train station in New Jersey.
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The blasts came two years after the Federal Bureau of Investigation looked into Rahami’s activities but found nothing tying him to terrorism. The journal, however, did not include any mention of the Islamic State.
Video found on a family member’s mobile phone dated two days before the bombings and taken near his home in New Jersey showed him lighting a fuse that igniting incendiary material packed in a partially buried cylinder.
And the complaints said in his bloodied journal – damaged by shots from his gun battle with police – he fumed that the US government was slaughtering Muslim holy warriors and alluded to plans for revenge. According to federal authorities, Rahami feared that he would be captured before he could carry out a suicide attack in the country.
The bombing in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood injured 31 people.
“The sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets”, the journal declared.
Other passages lauded Osama bin Laden, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, and former al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki. He said he witnessed Rahami shoot the officer before running down the street.
According to Ehsan, the pregnancy and Rahami’s seeming inability to move forward prompted his father to take the entire family to Afghanistan and then on to Pakistan.
Ahmad Rahami spent three months in the county jail, but was released after a grand jury failed to indict.
“He doing bad, he stabbed my son, he hit my wife”, he told reporters on Tuesday, explaining why he had alerted agents two years ago. The congressman said he doesn’t know whether Rahami has a lawyer.
The FBI has faced questions before about whether it could have done more ahead of time to determine whether attackers had terrorist aspirations. Rahami was listed in critical but stable condition, and police had not yet been able to interview him in depth, New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill said.
A federal law enforcement official told USA TODAY there was no immediate indication that the two men had any involvement in the terror plot.
Investigators have been trying to determine if Rahami had any accomplices in the USA or any contact with militant groups overseas that might have trained him in bomb-making. They married two conservative Pakistani cousins, friends told CNN.
It’s not clear where he travelled within the country and particularly if he spent time in areas near the border with Afghanistan that have been the frequent target of United States drone strikes. “They’re not in any jeopardy of being arrested“, O’Neill said.
Ultimately, federal investigators believed it was a domestic dispute, several federal officials told CNN. Rahami remained hospitalized Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016, after a shootout the day before with police in New Jersey.
Rahami has been unconscious and intubated for much of the time since undergoing surgery, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a court filing. At the time, he was employed by Summit Security, a private contractor.
In the last five years, Rahami traveled for extended periods to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Speaking in Urdu, Rahami said his son was not the same after that trip.
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Additionally, two law enforcement sources confirm to Fox News that Rahami’s wife, Asia Bibi Rahami, is cooperating with authorities. Sepulveda said he was unaware of any complaints about Rahami’s conduct.
