by Peter Jacobs and Pamela Engel

The man the FBI sought in connection with this weekend’s bombings
in New Jersey and New York has been taken into custody after a
shootout with the police in Linden, New Jersey,
officials said Monday. The suspect, 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, was born in
Afghanistan and is a naturalized US citizen, according to the FBI. He was not on any US
terror watchlist, officials said.

Rahami was shot in the standoff with the police, and a witness
told The New York Times a police officer might have been shot as
well.

He is believed to have connections to three incidents this past
weekend, according to law-enforcement agencies:

• A bombing along the route of a New Jersey charity race
  Saturday morning;
• A bombing Saturday night in New York City;
• And additional devices found in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on
  Sunday night.

The mayor of Linden told
ABC 7 in New York that an officer found Rahami when
responding to a report of a person sleeping in the hallway of a
bar.

ABC News reported that Rahami was taken to a hospital after he
was apprehended:

Rahami’s last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where
the FBI turned its investigation Monday morning after a backpack
full of bombs was secured by authorities near an Elizabeth train
station late Sunday night.

Five bombs were found in the backpack; one of them exploded while
Union County’s bomb squad tried to defuse it with a robot.

Two restaurant patrons first saw the backpack on top of a trash
can outside Hector’s Place restaurant, thought it might contain
valuables, and tried to carry it through the parking lot,

according to The New York Times. When the bag got too heavy,
they dropped it. They then discovered that it contained wires and
a pipe, and they called the police.

Rahami is also believed to have connections to the New York City
bombing on Saturday night. Authorities believe he appeared in
surveillance video that evening from 23rd Street and 27th Street,
where one bomb exploded and another was found, according
to NBC News.

The bomb that exploded on 23rd Street injured 29 people, all of
whom have been released from hospitals. FBI agents
stopped “a vehicle of interest in the investigation” Sunday
evening.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York had warned that Rahami could be
“armed and dangerous,” and he instructed anyone who spotted him
to call 911 immediately. Area residents received an emergency
alert about Rahami on Monday morning on their phones.

So far, the police have not identified any additional suspects.
But law-enforcement sources say
two others were seen on surveillance tape handling the bomb in
New York on Saturday, and the police questioned five people who
were in the vehicle pulled over Sunday night in connection to the
investigation.

Authorities appear to be changing their initial assessment that
the bombs found in New York and New Jersey weren’t connected and
that the incidents didn’t appear to be related to international
terrorism.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York told CNN on Monday morning that he
“would not be surprised if we did have a foreign connection to
the act.”

Here’s everything we know about Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in
custody in connection with the New York and New Jersey bombings

By Mark Abadi

Ahmad Khan Rahami, a 28-year-old Afghan-American man,
has been taken into custody in connection with bombings in
New York City and New Jersey over the weekend.

Police arrested him after an exchange of gunfire in Linden, New
Jersey, that left the suspect wounded.

Details about Rahami are slowly starting to emerge. Here’s
everything we know about him so far:

• He’s an American citizen. Rahami was born in
Afghanistan in 1988. The FBI described him as a naturalized US
citizen whose last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

• He’s believed to have connections to three bomb
incidents this weekend: One bomb exploded in New Jersey
before the start of a charity race on Saturday morning; another
exploded in New York City on Saturday night and injured 29
people; and additional unexploded devices were found in New
Jersey on Sunday.

Rahami is not believed to have a connection to a
mass stabbing in Minnesota on Saturday, for which ISIS has
claimed responsibility.

• There’s no evidence he’s connected to ISIS, Al Qaeda,
or other foreign terror organizations. However,
authorities are exploring a possible link to international
terrorist groups. After initially insisting the New York bombings
weren’t linked to international terrorism, New York City Mayor
Bill de Blasio said
on Monday the attack appeared to be a “specific act of
terror.” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he “would not be
surprised if we did have a foreign connection to the act.”

• Rahami’s family had issues with their local
government. Rahami’s father’s restaurant, First American
Fried Chicken, in Elizabeth, was open 24 hours a day and drew
complaints from neighbors about rowdy crowds and loitering,

according to The New York Times. Rahami and his brothers
worked at the restaurant. The Rahamis did not comply with a City
Council ordinance to close the restaurant at 10 p.m., and one of
Rahami’s brothers was arrested after fighting a police officer
who came to close the restaurant, but fled to Afghanistan before
the case could be resolved.

According to The Times, the Rahami family sued the city, the
police department, and about 15 police officers,
claiming they had been discriminated against because of
their race and ethnicity.

 


Two
members of the FBI work at the scene of Saturday night’s
explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of
Manhattan.
Getty Images/Drew
Angerer

• He’s gotten in trouble with the law before. A
New Jersey apartment complex filed a landlord-tenant civil action
suit against Rahami in 2013,
USA Today reported, although the outcome of the case is
unknown. Rahami also lost $1,158 in a small claims judgment in
2012, according to USA Today.

• The devices found in New York City were made with
pressure cookers, flip phones, and Christmas lights. The
explosives were
filled with “small bearings or metal BBs” to inflict as much
damage as possible, according to
The New York Times.

• Police found Rahami sleeping in a bar. A bar
owner in Linden, New Jersey, called authorities about a man
sleeping in the hallway of his bar. An officer recognized the man
as Rahami, and
a gunfight erupted between the two. The officer was hit in
his bulletproof vest over his abdomen. Rahami fled the bar and
was eventually shot multiple times by other officers. One other
officer
was injured in the gunfight.