FBI hunting for Afghan-born US man over NY bombing

NEW YORK, USA (3rd UPDATE) – The FBI was hunting Monday, September 19, for an Afghan-born US man wanted in connection with a weekend bombing in New York that injured 29 people as a packet of bombs were found in his New Jersey hometown.

The weekend attack, along with a stabbing spree in Minnesota carried out by a Somali-American whom police said made “references to Allah” and a pipe bomb explosion along the route of a Marine Corps race in New Jersey have raised security fears less than two months before the US presidential election.

Federal investigators released a mugshot of 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, who has brown hair and a brown beard, saying he was last known to live in Elizabeth, a town adjacent to Newark International Airport.

The FBI said a suspicious package with multiple improvised explosive devices was found overnight at the train station in Elizabeth.

In the course of trying to defuse the devices, the bomb squad accidentally detonated one of them, causing no injuries, the FBI said.

The release of Rahami’s name is the first major breakthrough in the investigation since the bomb exploded in New York’s Chelsea on Saturday night, September 17, damaging buildings, shattering glass and sending shrapnel flying across the street.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama, who was in New York with other world leaders at the UN General Assembly, had been “updated through the night” and on Monday by his national security team.

“Our investigators are continuing to do really good work to get to the bottom of what exactly happened here. The president’s fully supporting them. He’s the one that’s in the loop being updated on this regularly,” Earnest told CNN.

Police and the FBI said Rahami was “wanted” for questioning. He “could be armed and dangerous,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio warned on CNN.

Individual or cell

“We do not know yet if it is only one individual, more than one individual or if it is an organized group or not,” he added.

The picture that emerged on Monday morning was that the three incidents – in New York, the pipe bombing in Seaside Park on Saturday and the discovery of the IEDs in Elizabeth – may be connected.

“They might have been a common linkage or a common person behind all the bombs,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on CNN.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we do find a foreign connection to the act,” he said. On Sunday, September 18, the governor had said investigators had not yet found a link to the Islamic State (ISIS) group or any other foreign organization.

Fifteen years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, officials stress that lone-wolf attacks perpetrated by individuals who may be inspired by ISIS or Al-Qaeda propaganda are the greatest terror threat to the homeland.

“We know a lot more than we did just 24 hours ago. It’s certainly leaning more in the direction that this was a specific act of terror,” de Blasio told ABC.

New York police have beefed up massively in the city, fanning out reinforcements to bus terminals, subway stations and airports.

“We need the people’s help. Anyone with information about the situation, we need it now,” de Blasio told ABC.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the Chelsea bombing or any of the bombs in New Jersey, although a jihadist-linked news agency, Amaq, claimed that an ISIS “soldier” carried out the Minnesota stabbings.

The Minnesota assailant, a 22-year-old Somali-American, injured nine people in a shopping mall in St. Cloud on Saturday before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer.

Trump warns of more attacks

After the Chelsea blast, police uncovered a second bomb nearby on Saturday and defused it safely, before sending it to the FBI for forensic examination.

Both bombs were filled with shrapnel and made with pressure cookers, flip phones, Christmas lights and explosive compound, The New York Times reported.

Federal authorities also questioned 5 people from a car in connection with the New York bombing, officials have said.

Saturday’s pipe bombing in New Jersey caused no injuries but forced the cancellation of the Marine Corps race.

On Monday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump predicted that there could be more attacks, slamming what he called America’s “weak” policies in opening the doors to “tens of thousands” of foreign immigrants.

“We’re going to have to be very tough,” he told Fox. “I think this is something that maybe… will happen perhaps more and more all over the country,” he said.

His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, whose lead in the polls has taken a dip, condemned what she called “apparent terrorist attacks.”

The FBI said Monday morning that rail services, which had been suspended between Newark airport and Elizabeth, were back up and running. – Rappler.com