USA TODAY International Edition
Fingerprint on explosive device led to ID and capture
Hours before the FBI released a photo of bomb suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami in an urgent appeal for the public’s help Monday, federal investigators recovered a crucial piece of information allegedly linking the Afghan immigrant to a series of planted devices, including the explosive that injured 29 people Saturday in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
Authorities lifted a fingerprint from an unexploded pressure- cooker device, which, along with surveillance video that showed a man resembling Rahami wheeling a suitcase carrying crude explosive devices to two downtown locations, launched investigators on a fast- moving manhunt that ended about 50 hours later with Rahami’s arrest a few miles from the suspect’s New Jersey home.
Rahami, 28, was charged Monday with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer after a
shootout with police on a New Jersey street.
The fingerprint was key to providing much- needed focus to an inquiry that shifts to determine the suspect’s possible motivation, a federal law enforcement official who is not authorized to comment publicly told USA TODAY on Monday.
Although some officials initially feared that a larger terror cell might have been responsible for the placement of explosives at two locations in New Jersey and on two separate streets in downtown New York, the FBI and New York authorities appeared to foreclose that possibility Monday, saying no other suspects were being pursued.
“There is no other individual we are looking for,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said at an afternoon briefing at police department headquarters.
Some undisclosed forensic material recovered among the unexploded bomb components indicated the presence of another person, a federal law enforcement official said Monday. The official said that person had not been identified and it was not clear whether the evidence indicated the involvement of others.
After Rahami’s capture, investigators are attempting to unravel his recent communications, travel, how he allegedly acquired bombmaking materials and why such obscure targets were selected for attacks.
Earlier, federal investigators converged on the suspect’s family home above a fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, N. J.
It was not immediately clear whether the explosives were assembled there, the federal law enforcement official said.
Five people were questioned at length overnight and early Monday, but FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney said none of them had been charged.
None of the five, described as family members and people familiar with the suspect, was detained further after questioning.
It was not clear whether Rahami — shot three times during a confrontation with Linden, N. J., police — was cooperating.
His wounds did not appear life- threatening, a federal law enforcement official said.
Federal authorities described Rahami, born in Afghanistan in 1988, as a naturalized U. S. citizen.
Online business records show that a relative of the suspect, Mohammad Rahami, 53, is the owner of First American Fried Chicken, located at 104 Elmora Ave. in Elizabeth, N. J. Phone calls to the business Monday morning went to a voice mail machine.
New Jersey business records show that First American Fried Chicken was incorporated in 2003 by a woman named Molly Hamidullah.
A woman who answered the phone Monday at Hamidullah’s most recent known address, in Union, N. J., said Hamidullah no longer lived there.
Rahami’s family sued Elizabeth and several of its police officers and others in a federal court lawsuit in 2011 after the city enacted an ordinance that required the chicken restaurant to curtail its hours of operations.