What we know so far
- Bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was arrested after a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey, and about five hours after New York police sent his picture to millions of people with an appeal for help.
- Two officers were injured in the firefight, and Rahami, who had been found sleeping in the vestibule of a bar, was also shot. Elizabeth mayor Chris Bollwage said the officers’ injuries were not life-threatening – one was shot in the hand, the other in a protective vest – and that Rahami had surgery for his leg wound.
- Prosecutors charged Rahami with five counts of attempted murder of police officers, stemming from his shootout in New Jersey. He is in custody with bail set at $5.2m, and federal prosecutors have not yet leveled charges related to the bombings.
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FBI agent Bill Sweeney said investigators had “directly linked” Rahami to several bombs: one that exploded in Chelsea, Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring 29 people, an unexploded pressure cooker bomb found blocks away, pipe bombs found in Seaside, New Jersey on Saturday, and a device discovered near the train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Sunday night.
- Rahani is a naturalized US citizen who came to the United States with his family from Afghanistan, reportedly when he was seven years old. Neighbors who knew him from his work at the family’s fried chicken shop told the Guardian they were surprised at his arrest. The Rahami family lost a court battle with the city over the restaurant, whose neighbors had complained about noise, loitering and litter during its late-night hours.
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“We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror,” New York mayor Bill de Blasio said. But he and other officials declined to speak about the suspect’s possible motivation or whether he had any links to other people or groups.
- “I have no indication that there’s a cell operating in the area or in the city,” Sweeney said. NYPD police commissioner added: “Right now we’re not actively seeking anyone.”
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Governor Andrew Cuomo said that “foreign connections” might be discovered in the course of investigation. No claim of responsibility has yet been made by any foreign group, such as Islamic State or al-Qaida.
- Police interviewed five people stopped on the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn, Sweeney said, when their car was identified as a possible link to Rahami. None have been arrested.
- Investigators also searched the Rahami family’s fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, which Bollwage said had been a problem for the city.
- NYPD are hoping to find two men who stole the bag that had contained the second unexploded device on Saturday, though only “as witnesses” , NYPD chief Robert Boyce said. O’Neilly praised “good old fashioned police work” in apprehending the suspect. “I know I’m a lot happier than I was at this time yesterday.”
- President Barack Obama praised law enforcement and the people of New York, and warned against the spread of unconfirmed reports and rumors. He added that he saw no connection between Rahami and a mass stabbing attack in Minnesota on Saturday.
- Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump, her opponent in the 2016 election, of giving “aid and comfort” to terrorists by linking their crimes to Islam and embracing extreme anti-immigrant proposals.
- Trump said Clinton and Obama had “emboldened terrorists all over the world” by “not taking Isis seriously enough”, although investigators have not yet reported any link between the terror group and Rahani. He also repeated his call for an ideological test for immigrants, and said that his plan to defeat the terrorists was to “knock the hell out of ‘em”.
Updated
Law enforcement sources have now told two separate outlets news organizations that Ahmad Rahami had traveled to Pakistan to recent years, though the reports are unconfirmed and based on anonymous sources.
Rahami traveled to Pakistan in April 2013 and stayed until March 2014, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity to the New York Times. The paper had previously quoted Rahami’s friends as saying that he had gone to Afghanistan, where his family emigrated from.
The official said that in Pakistan, Mr. Rahami stayed in Quetta with relatives who are refugees.
Mr. Rahami also traveled to Pakistan for three months in 2011, the official said.
Earlier on Monday the Daily Beast heard from government officials, also speaking anonymously, that Rahami had traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Rahami has made at least three and possibly four trips to Pakistan over the past 10 years, one official said. Investigators are now trying to determine where he traveled in the country and particularly if he spent time in the areas near the border with Afghanistan that have been the frequent target of US drone strikes aimed at terrorist groups.
Rahami’s father also was in Pakistan as recently as July 2011, according to the family’s attorney, who informed a judge in a civil suit to which the elder Rahami was a plaintiff that he was not expected back in the country in time for a court proceeding the following month.
In September 2011, the lawyer informed the judge that while the father had returned, his “family is in Afghanistan” but was expected to return within days.
Two officials told the site that Rahami was not on any government terror watchlists.
The murder charges against Rahami are related to his shootout with police officers in New Jersey, and not his bombings of New York and New Jersey.
Earlier on Monday prosecutors said they were carefully drawing up what charges Rahami will face: terrorism charges require evidence of actions and motivation, and investigators have repeatedly said that they have more work to do to determine what moved Rahami to set bombs in Manhattan, Seaside Park and Elizabeth.
But charging Rahami with murder allows them to keep him under arrest and in custody, for now at the hospital, with bail set at $5.2m. Federal prosecutors said they were still weighing charges over the bombings. US attorney Preet Bharara said earlier Monday that he and other federal prosecutors wanted to have “careful and thorough” charges, backed up by evidence, before they formally brought a case against Rahaim on the bombings.
Updated
Rahami charged with attempted murder
Prosecutors have charged bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami with five counts of attempted murder, the Union County New Jersey prosecutor’s office has announced.
He is also charged with “second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon” and “second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose”.
“Convictions on first-degree criminal charges are commonly individually punishable by 10 to 20 years in state prison, while second-degree charges typically result in terms of 5 to 10 years,” the office said.
Rahami is being held with bail set at $5.2m and remained at a hospital, and it is not yet clear whether he has an attorney.
Updated
Two sets of scavengers played roles in the investigation of the New York and New Jersey bombings, the AP reports.
On Sunday night, two homeless men grabbed a backpack left in the trash near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, only to discover that it contained several apparent pipe bombs. The men quickly reported the find to police, Mayor Chris Bollwage said.
A day earlier, two men walking down a New York City street made off with a rolling backpack that someone had left on the sidewalk about 15 minutes earlier.
But before they walked away, they removed a pressure cooker that had been concealed inside it, New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said. The pressure cooker later was found by state police troopers after a similar device exploded nearby, injuring 29 people.
The unexploded device was then examined for clues to the bomber’s identity. Police found out that the two men had handled the device only when they looked at surveillance video.
“They looked like they were two gentlemen just strolling up and down Seventh Avenue, at the time,” Boyce said. “Once they picked up the bag, they seemed incredulous that they had actually picked this up off the street, and they walked off with it.”
Asked if it was possible that the scavengers, in handling the bomb, might have jostled it enough to disable its trigger, Boyce said he couldn’t say for sure.
“It’s difficult to say right now if they at all, inadvertently perhaps even, pulled a wire,” Boyce said.
He said the men were being sought as potential witnesses.
Local New York station ABC7 has spoken with the bar owner who reported Ahmad Khan Rahami to police on Monday morning, and reported his account of the morning gun battle.
“This guy is going for his gun or something because he’s going toward this, and that’s when the cop pulled the gun. That’s when he shot twice,” the owner, Harry Bains, said.
“You are the hero. You’re the guy who found the most wanted in America right now,” Charlesworth said.
“No, I’m not hero. Usually it has happened a couple times, I go and confront people, and I start yelling at them, what the hell you guys are doing in front of my bar? But today, I don’t know what happened. I just spoke to him nicely and it was my gut reaction. Something told me ‘You go call the police,’” Bains said.
He said, “What can I tell you, when you see something, say something.”
He said he didn’t tell the police he thought it was the suspect, and now he sort of wishes he had because as soon as he heard the shots fired, he was worrying about the police officers.
He shrugs off being called a hero. Bains said he’s always checking out things in the neighborhood that don’t look right. This guy did not look right and he just called police.
You can watch the full interview here.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made a brief appearance on NBC to again warn the residents of the New York area that they can expect a massive increase of security in teh next few days, if not weeks.
At JFK International Airport, Grand Central station and transit hubs all around the city will have more security than ever before. “That is the world we now live in and you’re not going to stop it with bluster and with threats. The anger is real and the anger is portable and it’s here.”
Thank you to our first responders, who are doing a phenomenal job working to keep New Yorkers safe. pic.twitter.com/zQpIO9mGWL
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) September 19, 2016
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has continued to harp on the New York bombing as an argument for extraordinary immigration restrictions.
In Estero, Florida, he has repeated his demand for an ideological test for immigrant applicants, a spin on his plan announced last December to bar Muslim people from entering the US.
“You can’t have vetting if you don’t look at ideology. And Hillary Clinton refuses to consider an applicant’s worldview and thus their likelihood of being recruited into the terror cause at some later date, which is going to happen in many, many cases. This isn’t just a matter of terrorism.
“This is also really a question of quality of life. We want to make sure we are only admitting people into our country who love our country. We want them to love our country. And we want them to love our people.”
Ahmad Khan Rahami was only seven years old when his family arrived in the United States in 1995.
And CBS News’ Sopan Deb notes that Trump has himself described a central flaw with his proposal.
Re-up: Trump talked up his ideological test today in Florida. Look at his comments from Canton, and you see a fallacy by his own admission: pic.twitter.com/4LzX3tMdgj
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) September 19, 2016
In Elizabeth, New Jersey, the Rahami family has returned home, the Washington Post’s Renae Merle tweets, while WNBC’s Pei-Sze Cheng notes the gradual return to normalcy in New York, about 15 miles away.
Family of suspected bomber walking back into restaurant in Elizabeth. Father spotted earlier pic.twitter.com/W2xQVqtNB6
— Renae Merle (@renaemerle) September 19, 2016
Part of 23rd street still shut down as evidence markers removed from scene. The latest at 5. #ChelseaExplosion pic.twitter.com/XfS0S13itA
— Pei-Sze Cheng (@PeiSzeCheng4NY) September 19, 2016
Investigators have said extremely little about Ahmad Khan Rahami, but reporters are piecing together some details of his life and family’s story.
Neighbors have told the Guardian that they suspected nothing from Rahami based on their interactions with him behind the counter of the family’s fried chicken shop in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They described the 28 year old as friendly, generous with free food to regulars, and at least for a time obsessed with cars souped up for racing. Some have said the family was quiet, and that Rahami’s father wore religious clothing but his sons did not.
The family immigrated from Afghanistan some time before 2002, when Rahami was 14 and they opened First American Fried Chicken. Rahami became a naturalized citizen at some point; MSNBC has reported that the family arrived in 1995 and were granted asylum in 2011, though the Guardian could not immediately confirm the dates.
The family also had a decade-long clash with the city over the restaurant, whose 24-hour operations drew complaints from neighbors about rowdy crowds. City records show repeated complaints by both authorities and the family about their interactions, and one of Rahami’s brothers pled guilty at one point to preventing police from enforcing a city ordinance. His lawsuit against the city, claiming anti-Muslim discrimination, is technically still pending although Mayor Chris Bollwage noted that courts have ruled in the city’s favor.
Bankruptcy court documents also showed that the family struggled with money; in 2005 Rahami’s father filed for bankruptcy, saying in hte documents that he had only $100 in the bank and more than $35,000 in debt.
Buzzfeed unearthed Rahami’s freshman yearbook, and spoke with one of his ninth-grade classmates, who said: “Very funny, class clown. Got along with everyone, was a very nice kid.”
The New York Times spoke with a man who grew up with Rahami, 27-year-old Flee Jones, who said that around four years ago Rahami told him he had gone to Afghanistan with one of his brothers. On his return, Jones and neighbor Andre Almeida said he grew a beard and more often wore traditional Muslim robes.
“It’s like he was a completely different person,” he told the paper. “He got serious and completely closed off.”
Updated
New York police tested a new warning measure on Monday morning, sending an alert to millions of people in the city and its environs with a photo and description of Ahmad Khan Rahami, my colleague Sam Thielman reports.
On Monday morning New Yorkers were surprised by a cell phone alert delivered by the Wireless Emergency Alert system (WEA) that told them to be on the lookout for Rahami and gave a brief description along with the instruction “See media for pic.”
Technologists balked at unorthodox use of the WEA, which is meant for public emergencies only. The use of the system to aid a manhunt is believed to be unprecedented; UC Davis law professor Elizabeth Joh said it raised a troubling precedent.
Urgent action was clearly needed, she said, but “that everyone with a camera & immediate access to social media should be enlisted by means of the cellphone [WEA] is a different question. It’s a difficult balance to strike.”
The WEA is limited 90 characters and is not enhanced by images or rich text, but Chris Soghoian of the ACLU speculated that such an enhancement to the system was close at hand.
Texting every phone in NYC with "see media for pic" doesn't seem terribly effective. I predict DHS asking the FCC for amber alerts w/pics.
— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) September 19, 2016
A law enforcement official has told the AP that fingerprints and surveillance video helped investigators identify the man suspected of setting off bombs in the New York area over the weekend.
The official says Ahmad Khan Rahami is seen in surveillance footage “clear as day” at the scene of the Saturday night bombing in Manhattan. The official says investigators were also able to recover his fingerprints from the scene.
Another law enforcement official says investigators pulled over a car “associated” with Rahami when it appeared headed toward an airport Sunday. It had three men and two women in it.
A third law enforcement official says Rahami wasn’t on any terror or no-fly watch lists but had been interviewed for immigration purposes.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the case.
Earlier on Monday FBI agent Bill Sweeney said that the five people questioned had not been charged with any crimes.
Family of the suspected bomber - including dad and brother - returned to their house in Elizabeth, NJ w FBI. Unclear if they're still here.
— Amber Jamieson (@ambiej) September 19, 2016
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has released a lengthy statement about the bombing attack, blaming Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for “not taking Isis seriously enough” and having “emboldened terrorists all over the world”.
The businessman claims: “I will bring an end to these senseless acts of violence. They are wrong to say that we’re in a fight about ‘narratives.’ These terrorists pose an existential threat to our country, our values, and our way of life.”
They are hoping and praying that Hillary Clinton becomes President so that they can continue their savagery and murder. …
When I am President, terrorists like today’s suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombings, Ahmad Khan Rahami, and yesterday’s knife-wielding ISIS sympathizer in Minnesota, Dahir Adan, will be stopped. We will not look the other way. We will not allow political correctness and soft-on-terror, soft-on-crime policies to threaten our security and our lives.
Trump then blames Obama’s immigration policies, saying that he would have a system of “extreme vetting for immigrants from troubled parts of the world where terrorists live and train”. There are no details or specifics in the statement about how Trump’s screening process would add to the existing, two-year vetting process for refugees, which requires extensive interviews and background checks.
He also thanks law enforcement, saying: “In the past 48 hours, our law enforcement showed again that, without them, our country is neither safe nor secure.”
Details of Ahmad Rahami’s life are still sparsely reported: he was born on 23 January, 1988, in Afghanistan, and his family has lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, since at least 2002, when they opened a fried chicken restaurant there. Rahami is one of several children, and would have been around 14 in 2002. His family clashed with the city over the restaurant, which drew complaints for the clientele it attracted while operating all night.
Once again someone we were told is ok turns out to be a terrorist who wants to destroy our country & its people- how did he get thru system?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2016
Earlier on Monday, Clinton accused Trump of giving “aid and comfort” to jihadi terrorists by his emphasis on calling them “radical Islamic terrorists” and anti-immigrant proposals.
She said that Trump was politicizing the crimes to make “some kind of demagogic point”.
“I’m the only candidate in this race who’s been part of the hard decisions to take terrorists off the battlefield,” Clinton told reporters. “I have sat at that table in the Situation Room.”
“I know how to do this,” she added.
Early Monday Morning Trump told the Fox News program Fox and Friends that his plan to defeat Isis was to “knock the hell out of ‘em”.
“We’re not knocking them, we’re hitting them once in a while; we’re hitting them in certain places. We’re being very gentle about it. We’re going to have to be very tough,”he said.
Updated
In New York, life goes on with its usual resilience: commuters and locals unfazed by bombs found in and near the city, a small army of heavily armed police and the warnings about unattended objects, my colleague Ciara McCarthy reports.
Commuters, shoppers and tourists bustled through Grand Central station on Monday, largely carrying on as usual after a bomb in the Chelsea neighborhood injured 29 people over the weekend.
New Yorker Ronnie Santos said he wasn’t worried about the detonation, which went off near the roadway at 23rd Street.
“I think you just kind of have to move on,” Santos said while waiting in line for his morning coffee. “In New York we just kind of expect things like that. You can’t really get too stressed about it.”
Several people who worked at shops in Grand Central noted a “heightened awareness” when they showed up to work on Monday, but said the transportation hub, through which an estimated 750,000 people travel each day, had largely resumed business as usual.
Victoria Bruc, who works in a jewelry store, said she was nervous but had resumed her daily routine with no changes since Saturday’s bombing.
“I work in Grand Central, I’m always concerned that it might be a target,” she said. “But I feel like you have to go on doing your thing, you can’t live in fear.”
Bruc said the transportation hub was humming along as usual, with regular foot traffic passing through the halls and security and law enforcement officers stationed regularly throughout the station. Bruc, 23, added that the visible security presence did make her feel safer working in such a famous and busy train depot. New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said on Sunday that about 1,000 additional law enforcement officers had been deployed throughout the city “just to err on the side of caution”.
“You’re always concerned when you hear about bombs exploding,” Jim Senn, 71, said visiting from Arlington, Virginia. “But I guess the scope of it wasn’t so great in my mind that it really gave me pause about coming here.”
Several city dwellers noted that in the wake of 9/11, the metropolis had proved its resilience. Dan Summa said he was concerned about Saturday’s attack, but that “you have to keep going on,” he said. “It would feel different someplace else.”
The quiet town of Linden, New Jersey, were shaken on Monday morning by the gun battle between Ahmad Khan Rahami and police, witnesses tell my colleague Mazin Sidahmed in the town.
“How could this actually happen here in Linden New Jersey?” wondered local Tosha Hardrick, visibly flustered. “It’s not what I would expect.”
In Linden, police have taped off several streets, blocking residents from reaching their homes. Several different police agencies were present and a helicopter circled above.
Hardrick was driving her cousin to work when she heard several gun shots go off. She looked to her left and saw a police officer carrying a backpack in front of a bar, where police are believed to have exchanged fire with the suspect.
Vinnie, who declined to give his last name, was walking out of his house on Elizabeth Street when he saw cops cars rush past his house.
“Then I hear gun shots, Boom Boom!” he said. “The cops are shooting and they’re shooting back at them.”
Adam Machala, who works as a plumber, had a come to a house on Elizabeth street for a job when he heard the gunshots go off. Police ran in the house and told him and the tenants to evacuate immediately.
“They were scared there might be a bomb in the building,” he said. He came back to the scene later to find Rahami handcuffed on the street with police and K9 units swarming the area.
Qunicy Reyes was sitting in his house when he heard what he thought was firecrackers going off not to far away.
“I just kept hearing it over and over,” he said. Eventually his mother called and told him what was happening.
Regulars at the Rahami family’s chicken shop – recently raided by the FBI – have described the suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami as “nice” and generous, my colleague Amber Jamieson reports from Elizabeth, New Jersey.
The family fought bitterly with the city in a federal lawsuit about the chicken shop, and ultimately lost their case to keep it open 24 hours. You can read the full lawsuit here.
“He was my friend,” said Brayant Ocampo, 17, a high school senior who lives nearby and regularly stopped off for late night cheese fries and fried chicken at First America Fried Chicken. “I wouldn’t think he would do something like that.”
“I thought it was a lie. We always eat there. It’s crazy. They’re really, really nice,” said Melani Ragghinti, 18, Ocampo’s girlfriend and another local resident.
“Basically when I went there, he would give me extra for whatever I would get. And I would see him at car meets. He was very cool,” said Ocampo. “I saw him once at the mall, we started walking around just talking,” he added.
Ocampo said he’d often see Rahami working in the shop, along with his father and younger brother and sister, who he believed were both around 16 years old. Ocampo said he never saw a mother around.
“He’ll start around five in the afternoon and he’ll work literally till 2-2:30 in the morning, that’s when the chicken shop would close,” said Ocampo.
“He had a good job, they got good money. Everyone likes eating at the chicken shack,” said Ragghinti.
Ocampo said Rahami was a car buff, who used to own an Acura TL, a popular luxury sedan, but crashed it.
“He actually came up to me because he wanted to look for some parts he needed for the car and I helped him out. I was looking for some parts in the junkyard and he got the headlight, the bumper,” he said.
Just a week ago, Ocampo said he walked past the chicken shop and briefly chatted to Rahami’s younger brother outside, while Rahami worked inside.
Ocampo said he knew Rahami was Muslim but he’d never heard any extremist views from him or any discussion of politics or terrorism. The only thing he’d encountered was some quiet religious study.
“One day I was in the chicken shack and he had a book and he was reading the book while he was listening to music and I asked ‘how can you do that and what kind of book?’. He said it was some kind of religion book, supposedly they read it while they’re listening to music,” said Ocampo.
“He would always be there, and usually when there was no customers he would be there reading it. He said it was like a bible but runs in his religion.”
Neither Ocampo nor Ragghinti could understand Rahami’s actions. “I don’t understand why he would do something like that, obviously he would get caught eventually. He had a good business going on. He just fucked up his life,” said Ragghinti.
Updated
A federal law enforcement official has told the AP that the three bombs found in New York and New Jersey had one component in common: a flip-style cellphone.
The official says a pipe bomb that exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, was constructed with a threaded pipe and black powder.
The official says two devices found in New York City included pressure cookers, similar to the devices used in the 2013 attack the Boston Marathon that killed three and wounded hundreds of people. The device that exploded contained residue from the commercially available explosive compound Tannerite.
The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the case and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the ongoing investigation.
The two New York bombs were pressure cookers filled with shrapnel and made with pressure cookers, flip phones and Christmas lights, according to law enforcement sources who spoke to the New York Times on condition of anonymity. The unexploded bomb may have been accidentally disabled by two men who took the bag, according to police sources who spoke to local DNA Info, prompting one of their law enforcement sources to ask: “Who in this world finds a pressure cooker with a phone and just takes the bag?”
The suspect is in custody. Thank you to our first responders who have performed with extraordinary skill and courage over the past two days.
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) September 19, 2016
Updated
What we know so far
They close the press conference with a refusal to provide details about how they linked the devices to the suspect.
- Bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was arrested after a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey, and about five hours after New York police sent his picture to millions of people with an appeal for help.
- Two officers were injured in the firefight, and Rahami, who had been found sleeping in the vestibule of a bar, was also shot. Elizabeth mayor Chris Bollwage said the officers’ injuries were not life-threatening – one was shot in the hand, the other in a protective vest – and that Rahami was in surgery for his wound.
- FBI agent Bill Sweeney said investigators had “directly linked” Rahami to several bombs: one that exploded in Chelsea, Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring 29 people, a second unexploded pressure cooker bomb found blocks away, pipe bombs found in Seaside, New Jersey on Saturday, and a device discovered near the train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Sunday night.
- New York mayor Bill de Blasio said that with new information about the bombing, “We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror.” But he and other officials declined to speak about the suspect’s possible motivation or whether he had any links to other people or groups.
- “I have no indication that there’s a cell operating in the area or in the city,” Sweeney said. NYPD police commissioner added: “Right now we’re not actively seeking anyone.”
- Governor Andrew Cuomo said that “foreign connections” might be discovered in the course of investigation. No claim of responsibility has yet been made by any foreign group, such as Islamic State or al-Qaida.
- Police interviewed five people stopped on the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn, Sweeney said, when their car was identified as a possible link to Rahami. None have been arrested.
- Investigators also searched the Rahami family’s fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, which Bollwage said had been a problem for the city. The Rahami family lost a court battle with the city over the restaurant, whose neighbors had complained about noise, loitering and litter during its late-night hours.
- NYPD are hoping to find two men who stole the bag that had contained the second unexploded device on Saturday, though only “as witnesses” , NYPD chief Robert Boyce said. O’Neilly praised “good old fashioned police work” in apprehending the suspect. “I know I’m a lot happier than I was at this time yesterday.”
Updated
NYPD chief Boyce comments on the apparent accidental help of two petty thieves who took the second bomb found Saturday, on 27th street, out of the unattended package it was in.
“Two people picked up the bag, took the device out of it and walked off with the bag,” he says. “They looked like they were two gentlemen just strolling up 7th Avenue at the time,” he adds. “Once they picked up the bag, they seemed incredulous.
“We’re considering them witnesses at this time,” he says, adding that they will release pictures caught on surveillance footage of the men and ask them to come forward.
Sweeney says Rahami did not make any statements during his apprehension, as far as he knows. O’Neill repeats that they are not looking for a second suspect: “Right now we’re not actively seeking anyone.”
Updated
Sweeney stresses that there’s a lot of work to be done about the Rahami’s motivation: “I do not have information yet to show what the path of radicalization was yet.”
At this point we are extremely grateful that we were able to apprehend the suspect out in Linden, New Jersey, he says.
We are the number one target in the world, but as far as this investigation, and working with the FBI, “I know that I’m a lot happier than I was at this time yesterday.”
O’Neill praises “good old fashioned police work” as well as the technology used in the investigation. De Blasio says authorities are not looking for a second suspect at this time.
He warns people to stay on the lookout for suspicious people or objects, “particularly an unattended package, that they report it immediately.”
Sweeney comments on the fact that Rahami was captured alive. “The fact that he survived is excellent, both from an investigative standpoint and that we saved a life.”
Updated
Sweeney is asked about how exactly they identified Rahami – there are reports anonymously sourced to law enforcement saying that the first ID’d him with a fingerprint. Sweeney’s answer is oblique: “Any piece of evidence that we obtained whether it’s a piece, a fragment or whole, is worthwhile, so I will leave it at that.”
O’Neill is asked about motivation. “We don’t have that yet,” he says, “that’s all part of the investigation.”
FBI: no indication of a terror cell
US attorney Preet Bharara says that Rahami has not yet been charged but that he will be later today.
He says that federal and state authorities are working out how to level “careful and thorough” charges.
“We’re absolutely not ruling anything out,” Sweeney answers a reporter’s question about possible associations. He declines to say anything about what investigators might have found in Rahami’s possession or online records.
“I have no indication that there’s a cell operating in the area or in the city,” he says, with the caveat that “the investigation is ongoing.”
FBI: Rahami directly linked to bombs
De Blasio warns “we will have a very strong and visible NYPD presence because of this incident and obviously because of the United Nations General Assembly.
“You will see our officers in the subway, you will see bags being checked, bomb-sniffing dogs, that will continue throughout the week.
“So I ask all New Yorkers, continue your vigilance, continue to share all information with your law enforcement.”
Sweeney, the FBI agent, takes the podium.
“Hundreds of personnel from the New York and New Jersey JTTFs, along with the FBI bureau, have been working tracking leads, reviewing surveillance footage … and executing searches.
“The JTTF began to focus on Ahmad Khan Rahami, working to [learn] his whereabouts.”
Officers conducted a traffic stop at the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn, he says, after it “had been observed by JTTF personnel at a location associated with Rahami.
“The passengers were questioned,” he says, “and no one in that car is under arrest.” They then conducted searches and interviews in Linden and Perth, New Jersey.
He says only that they have directly linked Rahami to the devices found in New York and New Jersey, but that he won’t answer questions yet about any possible links to other people or groups. He urges the public to come forward with any information they might have.
Updated
New York mayor: 'this was an act of terror'
“We have a lot more information and it’s coming in all the time,” de Blasio says. “We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror.”
He again urges New Yorkers to “be vigilant” and report anything suspicious to 1-800-577-TIPS, a hotline for police tips.
The NYPD briefing has just begun, with commissioner James O’Neill and mayor Bill de Blasio. NYPD officials Carlos Gomez and FBI agent Bill Sweeney are also there.
O’Neill says it’s been “an extremely busy today” and that “today our efforts were successful”.
He praises police who identified, traced and caught suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami.
“We had two police officers who were injured out in Linden, New Jersey, and I wish them our best.
“For my first day on this job, but certainly not my first day on the job, I’m certainly so proud of what I saw that day.” It was O’Neill’s first day as commissioner.
“This case is still very much active. Our primary focus has been to identify and apprehend the person responsible for this crime. Now that he has been captured we can focus [on possible connections or associations].”
De Blasio also thanks first responders for their “extraordinary skill and courage” and thanks federal and state partners. “We are hoping [the injured officers] will have a very speedy recovery.”
“There are some things we’re not going to be able to talk about,” he warns. He also says he just received a call from Barack Obama, who told him “how much he admires the resilience of the people of New York City”.
Updated
The bombing suspect is currently in surgery for a gunshot wound and the three officers injured do not have life-threatening wounds, officials in New Jersey have just told reporters.
“Whether it’s coordinated, inspired, led with others, how it developed, whether the person developed any views,” Senator Bob Menendez says, “in and of itself, from my perspective, it’s an act of terrorism.
“I think it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to say you were willing to do harm to others,” he says, it’s terrorism under his definition.
Elizabeth mayor Chsis Bollwage says “the suspect was not on the radar of local law enforcement but the fried chicken place that they own” had had problems with the city.
“Some code enforcement problems and some noise complaints,” he says. “When they ran the business in 2002 they ran the place for 24 hours [a day]. [We got] neighborhood complaints regarding a congregation of people, making noise, sought a city council ordnance. At which time the suspect’s father and two brothers took the city of Elizabeth to court.
“In October 2012 the courts ruled in the city’s favor.
“I can tell you the restaurant’s closed,” he concludes.
“Regarding the people who live here the town is extremely safe, the businesses are open, the trains are running, the schools are open. people need to continue on with their daily lives.”
Updated
The family of suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami runs a fried chicken restaurant, First American Fried Chicken, and has had problems with the town of Elizabeth in the past, Mayor Chris Bollwage told reporters this morning.
The AP reports that the suspect’s father, Mohammad Rahami, and two of his sons filed a lawsuit against the city in 2011, claiming that they were targeted for discrimination because they are Muslims.
The lawsuit claims that starting in July 2008 Elizabeth police and city officials tried to illegally restrict their restaurant’s hours, and that complaints by neighbors were based in anti-Muslim sentiment. The claims were terminated in 2012 after Mohammad Rahami plead guilty to blocking police from enforcing the restriction. Ahmad Khan Rahami was not part of the lawsuit.
The city argued that its restrictions on opening hours against the restaurant, which had been running 24 hours a day, were based on complaints by neighbors who saw people loitering, making noise and littering throughout the night.
You can read the full lawsuit here. Police have said that they have interviewed members of the family, though they have not been charged.
Updated
A man named Mike Markowycz has posted on Facebook in which audio of what is apparently the shootout between Ahmad Khan Rahami and police. A man in the video says that they actually witness the shooting, but he does not actually capture any video of the confrontation.
NYPD officials have delayed the briefing in the wake of Rahami’s arrest, though reporters are in the room and officials are testing the microphone.
On the campaign trail in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton has remarked briefly on the bombing. My colleague Sabrina Siddiqui reports:
Clinton touched upon the attacks briefly at a campaign rally in Philadelphia targeting millennial voters. After informing the crowd a suspect linked to the New York bombing was allegedly in custody, Clinton emphasized the need to “remain vigilant.”
“This is a fast-moving situation and a sobering reminder that we need steady leadership,” she said.
Her opponent Donald Trump quickly sought to politicize the explosion this weekend, even when few details were known about what had happened. He has also released a statement blaming Clinton’s “weakness”.
Hillary Clinton's weakness while she was Secretary of State, has emboldened terrorists all over the world..cont: https://t.co/E5BdTiwlur
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2016
We’re expecting a briefing in the next few minutes by NYPD commissioner James O’Neill and New York mayor Bill de Blasio. We’ll relay their remarks live on the blog, but you can also follow along on the live stream below.
Ahmad Khan Rahami was found sleeping in a bar hallway before a shootout and his eventual arrest, according to Linden Mayor Derek Armstead’s comments to the AP.
Armstead said the owner of a bar found the man sleeping in his hallway Monday morning. He says the man was initially presumed to be a vagrant, but police officers who responded quickly realized it was Ahmad Khan Rahami.
Armstead said the man pulled out a handgun and fired at the officers, hitting one in a bulletproof vest. The man then began firing as he ran down the street and police shot him in the leg. The man was conscious when he was taken away in an ambulance.
Linden police Captain James Sarnicki said three police officers were taken to the hospital. One was hit by shrapnel and another had high blood pressure.
What we know so far
I’m going to hand over to Alan Yuhas now, so here’s a short summary of what has happened this morning:
- Around five hours after his identity was released by law enforcement authorities, New York and New Jersey bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami was arrested in Linden, New Jersey.
- The arrested followed an exchange of fire between the suspect and police officers, two of whom were hit. Elizabeth mayor Chris Bollwage said one officer was shot in the hand and the other took a bullet to a protective vest. Both were expected to survive. Rahami was seen being loaded into an ambulance with what appeared to be a wound to his upper right arm or shoulder.
- Rahami had been wanted in connection with the explosion in Chelsea, Manhattan on Saturday night that injured 29 people, a second device found blocks away, and five devices found near the train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey on Sunday night, one of which exploded while being examined by a bomb disposal team.
- Rahami was also wanted by New Jersey state police in connection with the pipe bomb that exploded and others that were found in Seaside Park on Saturday, next to the planned route of a charity 5km run in support of the US Marines and sailors. Nobody was hurt in that incident.
- New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday morning that there were possible “foreign connections” to the bombs. No claim of responsibility has yet been made by any foreign group, such as Islamic State or al-Qaida.
- The presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, exchanged barbs in statements to the media on Monday morning. Clinton said Trump’s rhetoric, as evidenced in an angry and immigration-focused appearance on Fox News, “gives Isis what it wants”.
- In response, the Trump campaign said Clinton had “accused Mr Trump of treason”, which an advisor said was “not only beyond the pale, it’s also an attempt to distract from her horrible record on Isis”.
- President Obama, speaking in New York before attending the United Nations general assembly, counselled caution and resolve.
Dan Roberts’ analysis of the political fallout is here:
Scott Bixby, meanwhile, is covering continual political developments live:
Updated
Lee Zeldin, a congressman from New York state, has this to say on Twitter, in reference to the San Francisco 49ers quarterback who has been protesting the national anthem before games, over racial injustice in the US.
Suspect in custody. You are welcome Colin Kaepernick.
— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) September 19, 2016
Zeldin is a Republican.
It is being reported, by Reuters among others, that two police officers were shot in the shootout with Ahmad Khan Rahami that preceded his capture in Linden, New Jersey.
Reuters quotes Elizabeth mayor Chris Bollwage as saying one officer was hit in the protective vest and the other in the hand: sources cited by other media organisations say both officers are expected to survive.
Pictures and footage are emerging that appear to show the capture of the suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombings, after a shootout with police:
#BREAKING: #Linden #NJ (Union Cnty) #activeshooter. One Suspect in custody pic.twitter.com/nqzAdlRh9U
— Jewish Breaking News (@JBN) September 19, 2016
Video appears to confirm that the arrest happened in Linden, New Jersey:
#linden #nj #shooting pic.twitter.com/bhdYzMr12P
— Jewish Breaking News (@JBN) September 19, 2016
In another picture, a man is shown on a stretcher with what appears to be a wound to his upper right arm or shoulder:
#breaking the #terrorist Ahmad Rahami #linden #nj pic.twitter.com/DVo7gv1rrT
— Jewish Breaking News (@JBN) September 19, 2016
Amber Jamieson reports for the Guardian from Elizabeth, New Jersey, home town of the captured suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombings:
Elizabeth mayor Chris Bollwage said he was relieved to hear authorities had captured bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami.
“Now hopefully a lot more questions will be answered,” said the mayor outside the home of Rahami and his family, which the FBI raided on Monday morning but found empty.
The mayor said the family had owned and operated its business, First American Fried Chicken, and lived above the modest shop on Elmora Ave, New Jersey since 2002.
The mayor spoke about how the chicken store had faced complaints and problems in 2012, when the city council and police enforced that it close at 10pm. He acknowledged that the elder Rahami repeatedly mentioned his Muslim faith in responding to these complaints.
“He brought up his faith in [a] lawsuit, he brought up his faith in conversations with city officials … [but the complaints against his store] had nothing to do with ethnicity or religious beliefs, it had to do with a lot of people hanging out in front of the store at all hours as well as congregating and code enforcement problems,” said Bollwage.
Bollwage said New Jersey senators including Corey Booker were on their way to Elizabeth for a security briefing with law enforcement at 12.30pm.
Updated
Capture of suspect confirmed
Local law enforcement officials have confirmed to the Guardian that Ahmad Khan Rahami is now in custody after engaging in a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey. One officer was injured in the incident, according to police.
Updated
Barack Obama speaks as reports say suspect captured
President Obama is speaking now in New York. He begins by commending the first responders involved in New York and New Jersey and expressing his thanks that no one was killed. The investigation is moving rapidly, he says, and he will not comment on it as it is not his business. He will give all federal support to the investigations, he says.
He asks the public to help and the press to “try to refrain from getting out ahead of the investigation”. It does not help if false reports or incomplete investigation are out there, he says – this just as major news outlets are reporting, citing unnamed sources and without official confirmation, that the suspect in the bombings has been captured.
Obama says there is no connection seen between the stabbing attack in Minnesota and the bombs in New York and New Jersey, and again records his thanks that no one except the suspect in Minnesota was killed. The attack in Minnesota is being investigated as an act of terror.
He details actions against Islamic militants online and in Iraq and Syria, saying taking territory from them undermines their message and helps western governments “push back against their message of hate”. He makes similar points to Clinton on this effort, of course, and then goes into a long exposition of why America’s fight against extremism is so important.
No questions.
Updated
Trump advisor: Clinton accused opponent of 'treason'
The Trump campaign does not like Hillary Clinton’s remarks earlier today about the billionaire’s rhetoric on the bombs in New York and New Jersey giving “aid and comfort to our adversaries”, which it says amount to an accusation of “treason”.
In a statement, senior communications advisor Jason Miller said the comments “accusing Mr Trump of treason are not only beyond the pale, it’s also an attempt to distract from her horrible record on Isis.
If Clinton really wants to find the real cause of Isis, she needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. The decision to remove all American troops from Iraq in 2011, which was vigorously supported by Clinton, created the vacuum that led to the founding of Isis.
Nothing she says or does can ever un-ring that bell. The only thing we can expect from a Hillary Clinton presidency is more attacks on our homeland and more innocent Americans being hurt and killed.
We will be hearing from President Obama soon…
At 11:30am ET, @POTUS speaks on the New York and New Jersey incidents. Watch live: https://t.co/syHezfnxW8
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 19, 2016
Updated
Our reporter, Amber Jamieson, is now in Elizabeth, New Jersey and will be filing updates. In the meantime, here’s a taste of what the New York Times is reporting about the fried chicken restaurant that is being searched in connection with the hunt for Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in the blasts in New York and New Jersey:
… the man wanted in the bombing is the son of a man named Muhammad Rahami who runs a fast-food restaurant, First American Fried Chicken, in the ground floor of their home on Elmora Avenue, neighbors said.
The restaurant, which has employed Ahmad and some of his brothers, was such a persistent neighbourhood nuisance that the city forced it to close early, said Mayor J Christian Bollwage of Elizabeth. When it was opened several years ago, it stayed open all night, Mr Bollwage said.
The Times adds: “It was neighbour complaints, it had nothing to do with his ethnicity or religion,” the mayor said. “It had to do with noise and people congregating on the streets.”
Updated
The next New York press conference, with police chiefs and mayor Bill de Blasio, will be held in the city at 12.30pm ET, according to authorities.
In Elizabeth, New Jersey, law enforcement activity continues around a fried chicken shop and the residence above it:
Police towing Infiniti outside of fried chicken restaurant that authorities are searching #ElizabethNJ pic.twitter.com/LQDqKCkcaL
— Craig McCarthy (@createcraig) September 19, 2016
Clinton: Trump rhetoric gives 'aid and comfort to our adversaries'
Asked about “lone wolf” attackers, Clinton says we should spend more time working to stop them, and then heads into some detail of how that can be done, particularly regarding online recruitment. She wants to “intercept and prevent radicalisation and recruitment” online, with help from tech companies and experts.
Is this new attack or attacks an attempt by Isis to influence the presidential race and drive votes towards Donald Trump?
“I don’t want to speculate but here’s what we know,” Clinton says. “We know a lot of the rhetoric we’ve heard from Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists” to portray a war against Islam, to “turn it into a religious conflict”. We’re not going to give Isis “exactly what it’s wanting”, she says.
Trump’s comments have been used online for recruitment of terrorists, she continues, citing former CIA chief Michael Hayden. Trump’s rhetoric is giving “aid and comfort to our adversaries”, she says.
She discusses her experience in office again, saying: “I know our enemies … we’re going to stay focused on what will work.” She emphasises online counter-terrorism again.
Asked about Trump’s charge that she and Barack Obama are responsible for the rise of Isis, she dismisses it as a “demagogic” point. Work matters more than rhetoric, she says, and she has done that work and will do it in future.
You don’t hear a plan for him, you keep hearing him saying he has a secret plan, he has no plan.
And that’s that. A blizzard of attempted questions, “Thank you guys” and she’s gone towards the plane for Philly.
Updated
Clinton: 'campaign rhetoric' is a distraction
Now Clinton takes questions. She is asked about the suspect, an Afghan-born naturalised citizen. Clinton says we should remember the millions of peaceful such migrants and citizens and says she is in favour of tough vetting of migants, including a better visa system – she says we should remember the 9/11 attacks were not carried out by migrants, and we should not be distracted by the “campaign rhetoric coming from the other side”.
Updated
Clinton is now speaking.
Her thoughts are with those wounded in all attacks this weekend, she says. “This threat is real but so is our resolve” against the “evil twisted ideology” of her opponents.
She says she is the only candidate in the race who has experience in the fight against Isis and has laid out her plan for continuing that fight in office. She details that plan – supporting domestic law enforcement, launching an intelligence surge, building trust between law enforcement and Muslim communities. We have to “smash” Isis in the middle east, she says.
“Later today I’ll discuss the threat of terrorism” with the president of Egypt and other world leaders. She asks Americans to be vigilant, to report threats and suspicions, to “choose resolve, not fear” and not to turn on each other.
***WANTED FOR QUESTIONING**** RETWEET! https://t.co/B3IgarqY2D pic.twitter.com/QUjCFdtVc2
— NJSP - State Police (@NJSP) September 19, 2016
Clinton is due to speak to reporters soon, on the tarmac at the airport in White Plains, New York, which is hear her Chappaqua home. Appropriate preparations have been made:
Clinton has a glass of water and two lozenges at the ready as she prepares to address the media in White Plains. pic.twitter.com/KvKTVCzMjV
— John Wagner (@WPJohnWagner) September 19, 2016
Hillary Clinton is due to speak to the press at 10am ET, so we’ll live blog that. The Democratic nominee is then due to speak in Philadelphia at noon.
In the meantime, we have a statement from the Trump campaign. Senior communications adviser Jason Miller disparages the White House’s description of a “narrative fight against Isis just days after a series of apparent terror attacks on US soil”, and says:
Diminishing the threat the Obama administration has allowed to materialize on its watch puts us all at risk and is another reminder that we need new leadership in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism. Hillary Clinton has backed President Obama’s failed Isis strategy to the hilt, and voters should know whether she too shares the White House’s troubling assessment of the situation.”
The “narrative fight” reference is to remarks by White House spokesman Josh Earnest on CNN this morning: “What I can tell you is that we are, when it comes to [Isis], we are in a fight, a narrative fight with them. A narrative battle.
“And what [Isis] wants to do is, they want to project that they are an organisation that is representing Islam, in a fight, in a war against the West, in a war against the United States. That is a bankrupt, false narrative. It’s a mythology. And we have made progress in debunking that mythology”
New Jersey state police have said in a statement posted to Facebook they want to question Rahmani, wanted over the Chelsea blast on Saturday night, regarding the explosion of a pipe bomb, and the discovery of others, near the planned route of a charity 5k in New Jersey on Saturday.
No one was hurt in that blast, which happened in a trash can, possibly because the race had been delayed by too many people wanting to register. Rahmani’s last known address, Jersey state police said, was Elizabeth, New Jersey, which is where more devices were found last night.
Regarding possible “foreign connections” to the bombs, as discussed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on television this morning, New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi points out that neither al-Qaida nor Isis has yet claimed responsibility.
3. To date neither ISIS nor al-Qaeda (nor any other terror group that I know of) has claimed the explosions in NY and NJ
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 19, 2016
An Islamic State-run news agency did claim credit for the mass stabbing at a Minnesota mall on Saturday, which is being investigated as an act of terror.
It is important to remember too that Isis has previously claimed credit for attackers with whom it had no contact.
Updated
…and after Trump’s words on the dangers of immigration to Fox and Friends, as discussed below, there’s this from the Associated Press:
The US government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants who had pending deportation orders from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.
In a big country 858 might not be that big a number, but that’s not going to help calm the escalating political row over immigration down, as the hunt for the suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombings goes on. That suspect, 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahmani, was born in Afghanistan.
Donald Trump spoke to Fox and Friends this morning and the results were … predictable.
Asked about the bombs in New York and New Jersey, the Republican presidential nominee started off in the controversial if nonspecific tone of his first response to the news on Saturday, saying: “Well, it’s a mess and a shame and we’re going to have to be very tough … I think this is something that perhaps will happen more and more all over the country.”
Trump’s argument was of course that attacks such as this are all to do with immigration, the refusal by politicians to say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” – which he also applied to the mass stabbing in Minnesota on Saturday which is being investigated as an act of terrorism – and the failure to “knock the hell out of them”, meaning Islamic State, the rise of which was caused by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
He dodged a question about whether that meant he would send US troops to Iraq and Syria.
To take just his first points on immigration and the dangers of Syrian refugees:
“We’ve been weak,” he said, “our country’s been weak, we’ve been letting people in by their thousands and thousands and I’ve been saying you’ve got to stop it. Just last week Obama said he’s going to let 100,000 people in from Syria, 100,000. Hillary Clinton wants to increase what he’s let in, thousands and thousands, they don’t know, they can’t be properly vetted …
“I spoke to the best people in law enforcement, they say there is no way of vetting these people, so he let in over 100,000 additional people and now Hillary Clinton is raising it by 550% and this has been going on for a long time, thousands of people are pouring into our country, we have no idea what we’re doing, our leaders are … I don’t even say weak. I say stupid!”
So he did, repeatedly. Some points:
- In September 2015, Obama called for 10,000 Syrian refugees to be allowed into the US. The same month, John Kerry said the US would accept 100,000 refugees from around the world by 2017.
- By the start of September 2016, the US had allowed in roughly 12,000 Syrian refugees in the fives years since the start of the country’s civil war.
- According to an October 2015 analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, of the 784,000 refugees resettled in the US since 11 September 2001, three have been arrested for planning terrorist activities.
- Furthermore: “Two were not planning an attack in the United States and the plans of the third were barely credible.”
- Politifact.com says Clinton’s expressed policy of admitting 65,000 refugees would indeed be a 550% rise on current admissions, at the 10,000 level, but emphasises that she would also increase vetting, and rates Trump’s claim “mostly true”. Of course, in that analysis Trump is not using the 550% figure after saying “100,000”.
There was more from Trump, a lot more, and it’s viewable in the YouTube video above.
Reuters reports that the devices found in Manhattan and New Jersey were linked, according to a homeland security official.
There are no other details at present so it is unclear whether it is referring to all devices found since Saturday (a pipe bomb exploded on Saturday in Seaside Park, New Jersey, 11 hours before the Chelsea blast and five suspected devices have since been found in a backpack at Elizabeth train station, NJ).
Additionally, it is important to note that Ahmad Khan Rahmani is only currently being sought in connection with the Chelsea explosion.
Breaking: Explosive devices in New York and New Jersey were linked: Homeland Security official.
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 19, 2016
Updated
A cell phone alert has been put out urging people to call 911 if they see Manhattan bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami.
This cell phone alert just went out across #NYC and #NewJersey pic.twitter.com/rdC9VUCMPG
— Joel Waldman (@joelwaldmanFOX) September 19, 2016
According to the FBI wanted poster, Ahmad Khan Rahmani was born in Afghanistan. He is about 5ft 6 tall and weighs approximately 200 pounds. It says he “should be considered armed and dangerous”. Rahmani is wanted specifically in connection with Saturday’s explosion, which injured 29 people.
#BREAKING: "Wanted" poster just issued for Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, of New Jersey. Suspected in NYC blast. #KOMOnews pic.twitter.com/b9wqQ9KpJk
— Cayle Thompson, KOMO (@CayleThompson) September 19, 2016
Updated
This is a photograph of the man New York police are seeking in connection with the Chelsea bombing:
Wanted: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28 year old male, is being sought in connection with the Chelsea bombing. #nyc pic.twitter.com/hSxhMqO7Qh
— J. Peter Donald (@JPeterDonald) September 19, 2016
He is a New Jersey resident and naturalised US citizen.
Updated
NYPD name suspect
New York police have named an individual they are seeking in connection with Saturday’s explosion:
BREAKING: NYPD says it is seeking Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, in connection with the bombing Saturday in Chelsea https://t.co/wxObwlo8rh
— Mark Berman (@markberman) September 19, 2016
NBC NEWS: Address being searched in Elizabeth, New Jersey is directly related to Ahmad Khan Rahami wanted for his role in NY/ NJ bombings.
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) September 19, 2016
'Foreign connection suspected'
The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has said there was a possible foreign connection behind the Manhattan blast. He also said the investigation is moving quickly and authorities may soon target a person of interest.
NY governor predicts bombing investigation will "zero in on a particular individual today” https://t.co/s7hsuNkRMJ https://t.co/Q1yV8g1sAm
— CNN (@CNN) September 19, 2016
Cuomo had previously suggested there was no evidence of international terrorism.
Updated
FBI in New Jersey raid connected with bombs
The mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey, Christian Bollwage, has confirmed the FBI is searching a building in the area in connection with the explosive devices found in New York and New Jersey over recent days. He told CNN:
The FBI is executing a search warrant. They will be there for the next few hours, going through this location to find any evidence possible, whether it’s in relation to this incident or the Chelsea incident.
AP reports that FBI agents and police converged on an apartment above a fried chicken restaurant near the train station before 6am on Monday.
Mulitple news sources are reporting that law enforcement officials are conducting a raid in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where a backpack was found containing five suspected explosive devices. It is unclear whether it is connected.
FBI, ATF conducting raid in Elizabeth, New Jersey, via @CBSNewYork. https://t.co/hmLM9LAVrA
— Jan Carabeo (@JanCarabeoCBS3) September 19, 2016
BREAKING: We're following reports of a raid in an Elizabeth, New Jersey neighborhood, close to where backpack was... https://t.co/yHrZs7pI8R
— Sherea Harris (@ShereaHarris) September 19, 2016
Reporters from Fox and CNN say that the bombs that have been found in recent days have led authorities to believe there may be a possible terror cell in New York and New Jersey. New York governor Andrew Cuomo has said there is no evidence of a link to international terrorism.
#BREAKING: Authorities suspect a possible terror cell in New York and New Jersey https://t.co/OfF1MTBuxU pic.twitter.com/5OAeG0IPv0
— FOX 61 (@FOX61News) September 19, 2016
New York bomb probe has led to signs of a possible terror cell in New Jersey and New York, law enforcement officials tell @evanperez.
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) September 19, 2016
This video shows the moment one of the devices found in New Jersey exploded as a bomb squad robot tried to disarm it:
The moment a suspicious package blew up in New Jersey as a bomb squad robot examined it. https://t.co/B3ruNLIyKq pic.twitter.com/E8a8sq4dAx
— ITV News (@itvnews) September 19, 2016
Summary
Here is a summary of how things stand at present:
- Five suspected explosive devices have been found in a backpack near a train station in New Jersey amid an ongoing security alert after Saturday night’s Manhattan bombing. One of the devices near Elizabeth station exploded when a bomb squad robot tried to disarm it, Mayor Christian Bollwage told reporters. Bollwage said if five devices had gone off at the same time “the loss of life could have been enormous if there was an event going on”.
- FBI agents in Brooklyn stopped “a vehicle of interest in the investigation” of the Manhattan explosion on Sunday night, according to FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser. She would not provide further details, but a government official and a law enforcement official who were briefed on the investigation told AP that five people in the car were being questioned at an FBI building in lower Manhattan.
-
New Jersey Transit said services were suspended between Newark Liberty airport and Elizabeth while New Jersey-bound Amtrak trains were being held at New York Penn station.
- Investigators said the bomb that rocked Chelsea neighbourhood in Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring 29 people, contained residue of Tannerite, an explosive often used for target practice. The device was made with a pressure cooker, mobile phone and Christmas lights.
-
The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, said the Chelsea bomb was “similar in design” with one found unexploded a few blocks away, which was removed early on Sunday by a bomb squad robot. He said said there did not appear to be any link to international terrorism.
- Authorities are still investigating whether the Chelsea blast was linked to an explosion 11 hours earlier at the site of a 5km race to benefit Marines and sailors in Seaside Park, New Jersey. Initially they said they did not appear to be connected. The New Jersey race was cancelled and no one was injured.
