US bombings: Suspect planned attacks for months
NEW YORK ( Reuters) — The man who the US authorities said set off powerful bombs in Manhattan and New Jersey over the weekend planned the attacks for months, conducted a dry run just days before unleashing his assault and drew inspiration from “Brother Osama bin Laden” and other terrorists, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was arrested on Monday after a gunfight with police in Linden, New Jersey. He is being treated for his wounds at a Newark hospital, where he could formally face his charges if he cannot travel to the United States District Court in Manhattan, said his lawyer, who asked a judge to schedule his first court appearance for yesterday, possibly in his hospital bed.
The complaint said Rahami was motivated by an extremist ideology that he recorded in a notebook he had with him when he was taken into custody. Pierced by a bullet and splattered with blood, the journal contains screeds against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In one handwritten message, Rahami pleaded that he not be caught before carrying out his attacks.
” My heart I pray to the beautiful wise Allah,” he wrote. “To not take Jihad away from. I beg.”
Elsewhere in the notebook, the complaint said, he referred to pipe bombs and pressure cookers, as well as to shooting police officers. Rahami wrote of “killing the kuffar,” or unbelievers, and praised terrorist figures, including Anwar alAwlaki, once al-Qaeda’s leading propagandist, who died in a drone strike in Yemen, as well as the soldier who killed 13 people in a shooting at Fort Hood in 2009.