START TALKING, PUNK!
Did you have help? Were you trained in explosives? Who did you meet in Afghanistan?
LINDEN, N.J. — Authorities are feverishly digging into the background of an Afghan immigrant who is reportedly not cooperating with investigators after being arrested following a gunfight with police who quickly spotted him as the man wanted for a series of bombings here and in New York.
A bloodied Ahmad Khan Rahami, who the FBI said planted pressurecooker and pipe bombs in New York City and New Jersey this past weekend, was taken into custody about 11:20 a.m. yesterday.
His brother, teenager Aziz Rahami, was being interrogated by police later in the day, a family friend told the Herald. Meanwhile, federal agents were looking for clues at First American Fried Chicken, the family’s restaurant in nearby Elizabeth, N.J.
“He was hell-bent on harming someone,” said Linden police Capt. James Sarnicki of the 28-year-old suspect. “For him to just be walking down the street, indiscriminately firing a handgun, it’s upsetting.”
Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was wounded and taken away in an ambulance after the shootout, was reportedly not cooperating with law enforcement officials last night. Among the questions remaining are: was he inspired by a foreign terrorist group, who taught him to make bombs and did he have help?
He was later charged with five counts of attempted murder of police officers in connection with the shootout. Federal prosecutors said they were still weighing charges over the bombings.
Fox News reported last night that Ahmad Khan Rahami’s former girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, said he would “speak often of Western culture and how it was different back home. How there weren’t homosexuals in Afghanistan.
“One time, he was watching TV with my daughter and a woman in a (military) uniform came on and he told her, ‘That’s the bad person.’ ” she added.
Rahami’s father, Mohammad, and two of Rahami’s brothers unsuccessfully sued the city of Elizabeth in 2011 after it passed an ordinance requiring their restaurant, First American Fried Chicken, to close early because of complaints from neighbors that it was a late-night nuisance. In the suit, the Rahamis said they were targeted by neighbors because they are Muslims.
Meanwhile authorities said there is no evidence Ahmad Khan Rahami was part of a terror cell. Federal agents have said they are still working to understand his background — including his travels to Afghanistan.
William Sweeney Jr., the FBI’s assistant director in New York, said there were no indications Ahmad Khan Rahami was on law enforcement’s radar at the time of the bombings.
Authorities pegged him as the potential bomber after a fingerprint was lifted from one of the Manhattan bombing sites and “clear as day” surveillance video from Saturday night’s bombing scene that left 29 injured, according to three law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Ahmad Khan Rahami became the target of a manhunt after the New York City bombing about 8:30 p.m. Saturday night. An unexploded bomb was found nearby soon after,
and other unexploded bombs were found at a train station in Elizabeth, N.J., Sunday night. He is also tied to a 9:30 a.m. bombing Saturday in Seaside Park, N.J., at the scene of a Marine Corps charity race. There were no injuries in that explosion.
In Linden, a bar owner called police yesterday morning to report a vagrant sleeping on his front steps, and the responding officer recognized him as Ahmad Khan Rahami after seeing his face on an online wanted poster, police said.
“It’s fantastic how the officer remembered that photo in his head and as soon as that subject picked up his face he saw the beard and said to himself: ‘This looks like the guy,’ ” Sarnicki said.
Ahmad Khan Rahami then shot the officer, who was saved by his bulletproof vest, authorities said. More officers joined in a gun battle that spilled into the street. Another police officer was grazed by a bullet, but was not critically hurt.