And on Sunday, five devices were discovered at a New Jersey train station in Elizabeth. When the city passed an ordinance requiring it to close early, Rahami’s father and two brothers sued the city, Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage said. No cell phones or electronic timing devices were found on the devices, the mayor said. Another device went off while a bomb was trying to disarm it. “People need to continuing move on with their daily lives”, Mayor Chris Bollwage said.
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After being confronted by officers, Rahami opened fire and injured four law enforcement agents before bing shot in the shoulder and ultimately detained.
All trains going through Elizabeth station on both New Jersey Transit and Amtrak lines have been suspended, according to the respective transportation agencies.
– The FBI described Rahami as a naturalized USA citizen of Afghan descent with a last known address in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the same city where the backpack with explosives was found Sunday night.
An Afghan immigrant wanted for questioning in the bombings that rocked a New York City neighborhood and a New Jersey shore town was captured Monday after being wounded in a gun battle with police that erupted when he was discovered sleeping in a bar doorway, authorities said.
On Saturday night, a shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bomb similar to those used in the Boston Marathon attack exploded in New York’s Chelsea section, wounding 29 people, none seriously. By Sunday, 26 of the injured who had been admitted to hospitals had been released.
– Investigators first identified Rahami on Sunday afternoon through a fingerprint, according to a senior law enforcement official. “You don’t wanna pay for the whole price of what you did and this crime if other people are involved, ‘” Gomez said. Authorities are investigating all three incidents as possible terror acts.
U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-New Jersey) said Rahami emailed his office from Pakistan in 2014 seeking help because his pregnant wife had an expired Pakistani passport, the Associated Press reported.
City authorities said they had bolstered an already heavy security force with 1,000 more uniformed police officers and National Guard members. “We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror”, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. “We’re not taking any options off the table”.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was initially spotted by a police officer outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey around three hours after the Federal Bureau of Investigation released his mugshot and described him as “armed and risky”.
The investigation will now continue “to ensure we completely understand Rahami’s social network”, the FBI official said. “Was it a political motivation?”
She wouldn’t provide further details, but a government official and a law enforcement official who were briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press that five people in the auto were being questioned at an FBI building in Manhattan. Those found in N.J. were pipe bombs. After he leaves, the video shows two other men removing a white garbage bag believed to contain the pressure cooker from the duffel bag and leaving it on the sidewalk, according to a senior law enforcement official and another source familiar with the video.
Another law enforcement official says investigators pulled over a vehicle carrying three men and two women “associated” with Rahami when it appeared headed toward an airport Sunday.
Bomb technicians sent a robot to examine the devices. On Sunday night, police blew up the device, rendering it safe.
The remaining four devices in the backpack will be taken to an Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratory at Quantico, Virginia, Bollwage said.
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Danilo Gabrielli, 50, was watching TV at his 23rd Street apartment about a block away from the explosion site, when he heard the blast.
