Attack had eerie resemblance to Boston Marathon bombings
From pressure cookers, the release of a suspect photo, to the subsequent manhunt and shootout with cops, yesterday’s arrest of Ahmad Khan Rahami in connection with bombings in New York City and New Jersey has stirred echoes of blasts at the Boston Marathon in 2013, security experts said.
“Pressure cookers loaded up with BBs, ball bearings ... It seems, at least in part, the New York bomber or bombers took some inspiration from the Tsarnaev brothers, whether it was conscious or subconscious,” said Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force colonel who held top posts at the National Security Agency and the Pentagon.
Rahami, 28, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan, was arrested yesterday in Linden, N.J., after shooting and wounding two cops and being shot himself, police said. He is the suspect in Saturday’s bombings in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood that injured 29 people and a blast earlier that day in Seaside Park, N.J.
Rahami is also being investigated for multiple improvised explosive devices found at a train station in New Jersey.
Former Boston police Commissioner Edward F. Davis, who was the city’s top cop during the investigation into terrorists Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev for the pressure-cooker bombs they left near the finish line, said a “difference” between the attacks in Boston in 2013 compared with this weekend’s was it seems Rahami was a “reluctant or incompetent terrorist.”
Davis explained that a bomb left in Chelsea exploded inside or near a dumpster — minimizing injuries. Davis was also reminded of Boston’s terrorist attack when authorities released a picture of Rahami, caught up with him and were involved in a shootout yesterday.
“Once those pictures go out, that’s when it’s most dangerous. ... He attempted suicide by cop. It’s all very familiar,” Davis said.