Following is a summary of this CNN article:
Ahmad Rahami, the suspect in Saturday’s bombings in New York and New Jersey, has been charged for the crimes under the use of a weapon of mass destruction, bombing, destruction of property and use of a destructive device.
Rahami is originally from Afghanistan, coming to the United States in 1995 as a child after his father arrived seeking asylum. He became a U.S. citizen in 2011.
In the last five years, Rahami traveled for extended periods to Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011, Rahami spent several weeks in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Quetta, Pakistan, which is known to be a stronghold of the Taliban. Two years later in 2013 he returned to Pakistan and stayed for nearly a year, and his brother traveled to Pakistan at around the same time.
When Rahami returned to the US, immigration officials asked him about the travels, and he replied that he was visiting family which satisfied any concerns they may have had.
While he was in Pakistan in 2011, he married a Pakistani woman and filed paperwork to bring her back to the US, and it was approved in 2012. In 2014, Rahami contacted Congressman Albio Sires’ office from Islamabad, saying he was concerned about his wife’s passport and visa.
Rahami’s wife left the U.S. a few days before Saturday’s attacks, according to law enforcement officials.
A notebook was found on Rahami which mentions the Boston Marathon bombers and Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American imam who was a spokesman for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Awlaki was killed in 2011 and has been a source of inspiration for many terrorist attacks.
Rahami’s father had called the FBI two years ago when his son was acting violently, accusing him of being a terrorist. Rahami was jailed for a family dispute where he stabbed one of his relatives, but the FBI never interviewed him and he was never placed in an FBI database of potential terrorists.
Surveillance video from Saturday evening shows Rahami dragging a duffel bag with wheels near the site of the West 23rd street explosion, about 40 minuted before the blast, and 10 minutes later surveillance video showed the same man with the same duffel bag on West 27th Street, near the site of the second bomb.
Rahami was identified Sunday afternoon through a fingerprint. Evidence from the cell phone on the pressure cooker also led to Rahami’s identification.
He was captured in Linden, N.J., where a bar owner spotted him sleeping in the doorway of his bar.
When officers responded, Rahami started shooting at them, striking an officer in his protective vest, and a chase ensued while Rahami shot at a police car, causing a bullet to graze another officer in the face. Rahami was then shot multiple times and taken to a hospital for surgery.
Rahami was charged with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and unlawful weapons charges.
