September 19, 2016
ELIZABETH, N.J. — The 28-year-old New Jersey man wanted in connection with a series of blasts that terrorized New York and New Jersey over the last three days was taken into custody Monday after being shot, two sources told NBC News.
September 19, 2016
ELIZABETH, N.J. — The 28-year-old New Jersey man wanted in connection with a series of blasts that terrorized New York and New Jersey over the last three days was taken into custody Monday after being shot, two sources told NBC News.
An FBI agent carries a box of material from an apartment to a car during an investigation at a building in Elizabeth, N.J. early Monday, Sept. 19, 2016.
Ahmad Rahami of Elizabeth, New Jersey, was identified as a suspect after a fingerprint was found on one of the devices that failed to detonate, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News.
BreakingNews.com has live coverage of the bombings in NY and NJ, click to view.
They also found more information that pointed to Rahami on cell phones that were wired to the unexploded bombs, the official said.
"He certainly seemed to do virtually nothing to cover his tracks," the official says.
But the official downplayed any talk of Rahimi being part of a "cell" and said at this point have no idea whether anyone else was involved.
Asked whether the bombings were ISIS-inspired or directed, the official said authorities have no idea: "We're a long way from that."
Still, the FBI warned that Rahami should be considered armed and dangerous. And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said officials could not rule out international terrorism.
"Today's information suggests it may be foreign related, but we'll see where it goes," Cuomo said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday.
Rahami is the man seen in surveillance footage taken Saturday night in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, the site of an explosion that injured 29 people, a senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC News.
The source said there is other physical evidence linking Rahimi to the devices that went off or were found in New York and New Jersey.
The development came hours after a backpack that appeared to contain pipe bombs exploded as a police robot examined it near a New Jersey train station. That blast happened shortly before 1 a.m. ET Monday. It was the second in New Jersey since Saturday morning.
Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage told reporters the bomb squad robot was "cutting into the device when it exploded" in his city. A spokesman for Bollwage had earlier described the blast as a controlled detonation.
Meanwhile, officials familiar with the investigation confirmed to NBC News that heavily armed FBI agents spotted at a fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth around 6 a.m. were involved in the tri-state bombs probe.
Several law enforcement officials told NBC News that they are concerned that an active terrorism cell with multiple players could be at work in the New York-New Jersey area.
Earlier, authorities stopped a "vehicle of interest" in the New York blast at about 8:45 p.m. ET Sunday near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York, the FBI said. Five people were being questioned by the FBI early Monday, they said.
None of the five people had been charged, authorities told NBC News.
Multiple senior law enforcement officials told NBC News that the suspicious device discovered Sunday night in Elizabeth looked similar in appearance to the one that exploded Saturday morning in Seaside Park, N.J.
The latest package was a backpack, and it was found by two men in a garbage can about 300 feet from the front door of a crowded pub in Elizabeth, Bollwage said.
When they saw wires and pipes, they dropped it and immediately went to police headquarters, he said.
"We do not believe those two are involved," the mayor said. "We believe they did the right thing."
Bollwage said he was "extremely concerned for the residents of the community" that "someone could just go and drop a backpack into a garbage can that has multiple explosives in it."
New Jersey Transit suspended services between Newark Airport and the Elizabeth station, and Amtrak suspended service along parts of the Northeast Corridor.
The explosion Saturday night in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood injured 29 people. Less than three hours later, a "possible secondary device" was found a few blocks away on 27th Street by officers were combing the area.
The blast sent a dumpster flying more than 150 feet down the sidewalk and shattered windows more than a block away, a senior law enforcement official said.
Investigators were analyzing possible similarities between the two devices found in Manhattan and the one that detonated in Seaside Park. All three devices apparently contained old-style mobile flip phones, according to officials familiar with the probe.
The New York explosion was determined to have been an "intentional act," authorities said.
Cuomo at the time said it was clearly "an act of terrorism," although he did not link it to any one international terrorist group.
"A bomb going off is generically a terrorist activity," said Cuomo, who ordered 1,000 New York State Police and National Guard members deployed across the city.
Security had already been tightened in the city for the U.N. General Assembly, but the deployment of officers across New York City after the blast will be "bigger than ever," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
Cuomo said it was "fortunate" that no deaths occurred.
"When you see the damage, it's amazing that no one was killed, to tell you the truth. We're lucky that only 29 were injured," Cuomo said Sunday on MSNBC.
Courtesy: NBC News
