The city was fighting the claims.
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Rahami, blood pouring from a wound in his shoulder and splattered on his face, was loaded onto a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance.
Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of NY, said he believed Rahami would be charged with shooting the police officers Monday in Linden.
He then began firing as he ran down the street and police shot him in the leg. Surveillance footage shows a man walking toward the spot where the bomb detonated shortly before the blast, but the placement has police puzzled. The earlier two bombs were pressure cooker bombs with shrapnel inside, similar to those used in the Boston marathon bombing. Evidence has “directly linked” Rahami to the improvised explosive devices in NY and Seaside Park in New Jersey, he said.
Rahami’s arrest came just hours after police issued a bulletin and photo of Rahami, a naturalized USA citizen from Afghanistan who lives in Elizabeth in an apartment above a fried-chicken restaurant owned by his father a few miles from the Newark airport.
Police raided an apartment in Elizabeth hours later, apparently in connection with the bombing in Manhattan. The bag had wires and a pipe protruding from it. Bollwage said the Federal Bureau of Investigation was attempting to disarm one of the devices when it exploded. Now, this is a normal protocol for the U.N. General Assembly.
A law enforcement official said investigators regard Rahami as the “main guy” in the two explosions but plan to look into whether any others had a role.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, chief federal prosecutor in NY, said New Jersey officials will probably bring charges against Rahami in the police officers’ shooting while federal authorities weigh charges of their own. He says was one was struck in a protective vest and the other in the hand. -Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
Amtrak said 2,400 passengers were affected, but that schedules returned to normal Monday morning. Authorities are seeking a man for questioning in both bombings. Authorities later identified the suspect as Ahmad Rahami, a US citizen of Afghan descent. His last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant on Monday morning.
The Latest on an apparent explosion in Manhattan. In New Jersey that morning, a bomb exploded inside a trash can along the route of a race to benefit military veterans. One of the devices exploded as the bomb squad was using a robot to disarm the contents, but no one was injured.
Police are still investigating the motives behind the bombing in Chelsea, Manhattan, which injured 29 people, and a blast at a charity race in a Jersey shore town. He says Obama will comment publicly “relatively soon”.
Around the time Rahami was taken into custody, President Barack Obama was in NY on a previously scheduled visit for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
A loud explosion has shaken the busy Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, injuring 29 people on Sep 17. He is a naturalized citizen from Afghanistan.
“Todays information suggests it may be foreign related but well see where it goes”, Cuomo told another TV channel. De Blasio repeatedly declined on Saturday to call the bombing an act of terrorism.
The Clinton Police Department’s bomb squad is one of four in MS on high alert after bombings in NY and New Jersey over the weekend.
“The FBI is asking for assistance in locating Ahmad Khan Rahami”, FBI New York said in a tweet. The device that exploded contained residue from the commercially available explosive compound Tannerite. Authorities warned he “should be considered armed and risky”.
“What we didn’t know yesterday, and we don’t know yet, is: Is anyone taking credit for it and is it linked to global terrorism?” Authorities were trying to determine if they were connected.
Police believe that he was also responsible for a backpack full of pipe bombs found in Elizabeth, New Jersey, late Sunday. She said the injuries to the officers were not critical.
Andrew Cuomo told reporters earlier in the day that authorities had not yet found any links to worldwide terrorism. No cell phones or electronic timing devices were found on the devices, Bollwage said.
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“A lot of technology involved in this, but a lot of good, old-fashioned police work, too”, said New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill.
