JOURNAL SHEDS LIGHT ON BOMB SUSPECT’S PLAN
NEW YORK • Championing jihad, bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami vowed to martyr himself rather than be caught after setting off explosives in New York and New Jersey, and hoped in a handwritten journal that “the sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets,” authorities said Tuesday as they filed federal charges against him.
A criminal complaint in Manhattan federal court provided chilling new descriptions of the motivations that authorities said drove the Afghan-born U.S. citizen to set off the explosives Saturday, including a bomb that injured more than two dozen people when it blew up on a busy Manhattan street.
Meanwhile, more details emerged Tuesday about the suspect’s past, including the disclosure that the FBI had looked into him in 2014 but came up with nothing.
According to the court complaint, Rahami’s journal included a passage that said: “You (U.S. Government) continue your (illegible) slaught(er)” against the mujahideen, or holy warriors, “be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Sham (Syria), Palestine ...”
Another portion expressed concern at the prospect of being caught before being able to carry out a suicide attack and the desire to be a martyr, the complaint said.
There were also laudatory references to Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki — the American-born Muslim cleric whose preaching has inspired other acts of violence and who was killed in a 2011 drone strike — and Nidal Hasan, the former army officer who went on a deadly shooting rampage in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas, the complaint said.
Before the federal charges were filed, Rahami, 28, was already being held on $5.2-million bail, charged with the attempted murder of police officers during the shootout that led to his capture Monday outside a bar in Linden, N.J.
He remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds to the leg, forearm and shoulder.
The court complaint also describes Rahami buying citric acid, ball bearings and electronic igniters on eBay and having them delivered to a New Jersey business where he worked until earlier this month.
The FBI’s 2014 inquiry began after his father expressed concerns his son might be a terrorist, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
During the inquiry, the father backed away from talk of terrorism and told investigators that he simply meant his son was hanging out with the wrong crowd, the officials said.
Rahami’s father, Mohammad Rahami, told reporters Tuesday outside the family’s fried-chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, N.J., that he called the FBI at the time because Rahami “was doing real bad,” having stabbed his brother and hit his mother.
“But they checked, almost two months, and they say, ‘He’s OK, he’s clear, he’s not terrorist.’ Now they say he’s a terrorist,” the father said. Asked whether he thought his son was a terrorist, he said: “No. And the FBI, they know that.”
Rahami was not prosecuted in the stabbing; a grand jury declined to indict him.
The FBI checked its databases and closed its inquiry in a matter of weeks after seeing nothing tying Rahami to terrorism, three law enforcement officials said.
Rahami’s father and brothers long nursed tensions with neighbours and officials over their restaurant’s late hours, a conflict the family claimed in a lawsuit was the result of discrimination against them as Muslims.
Adjudication of the lawsuit was put on hold in 2011 when the elder Rahami travelled to Pakistan and was unable to return to the U.S. in time, court filings show. The lawsuit was terminated in 2012 because one of the brothers, Mohammad K. Rahami, had pleaded guilty to blocking police from enforcing restrictions on the restaurant.
Ahmad Khan Rahami worked as an unarmed night guard for two months in 2011 at an Associated Press administrative technology office in Cranbury, N.J., it was learned this week. At the time, he was employed by Summit Security, a private contractor.
Associated Press global security chief Danny Spriggs said he learned that Rahami worked night shifts at the AP building and often engaged colleagues in long political discussions, expressing sympathy for the Taliban and disdain for U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
Rahami left that job in 2011 because he wanted to take a trip to Afghanistan, Spriggs said.
Summit’s vice-president of security services, Daniel Sepulveda, said Rahami last worked for the company in 2011 and left the job because he wanted an extended leave that didn’t coincide with his work schedule.
A Democratic New Jersey congressman, Albio Sires, said Rahami contacted his office from Pakistan in 2014 seeking help because his wife had an expired Pakistani passport.
Sires said his office wrote a letter to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan to check on the status of the case and the woman received a visa. He said he didn’t know if she ever came to the country, and the FBI didn’t answer when asked about it Monday.
Investigators are looking into Rahami’s overseas travel, including the visit to Pakistan a few years ago, and want to know whether he received any money or training from extremist organizations.