Investigators gather clues on NYC bombing suspect

The bombings in New York City and New Jersey happened the same day that a man stabbed and injured nine people at a Minnesota mall before an off-duty police officer fatally shot him.

Rahami is considered the prime suspect in a string of bombings that began in the quiet shore town of Seaside Park, New Jersey, on Saturday, and continued in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan and in Rahami’s native Elizabeth, where authorities found a bookbag stocked with five improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, left, speaks next to Police Commissioner James O’Neill, second from left, during a news conference at police headquarters in New York Sunday.

Rahami was not initially cooperative with police who tried to interview him, a law enforcement official said.

Rahami, 28, a naturalized US citizen from Afghanistan who lived with his Muslim family in Elizabeth, New Jersey, underwent surgery for a gunshot wound to the leg as authorities began drawing up charges in a case that spread fear across the NY area and revived anxiety about homegrown terrorism. “And I put him in jail”, Mohammad said after speaking with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at his home Tuesday.

However, Rahami’s wife eventually made it to the USA – and she left just days before Saturday’s attacks, according to a law enforcement official.

No one was injured in the other blasts.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said as investigators gathered information, they learned there were “certain commonalities among the bombs”, leading authorities to believe “that there was a common group behind the bombs”. The St. Cloud police chief said the man reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if he or she was Muslim before attacking. According to a report by Associated Press, his fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene of the bombing, and his face was visible in the footage caught on surveillance camera near the spot of the bomb blast. The significance of Rahami’s chosen targets – if there was any – also was not known.

Late on Sunday night, five explosive devices were found in a rubbish bin at an Elizabeth train station. Sires said when her passport was renewed, Rahami’s wife found out she was pregnant and was told she could not get a visa until she had the baby and that the baby also needed a visa, according to CNN.

A view of a mangled dumpster at the site of an explosion that occurred on Saturday night in the Chelsea neighborhood of NY.

Cuomo also said investigators need to review Rahami’s travels to determine when he was radicalized and if the country needs to adopt better screening procedures.

New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers stand near the site of an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, U.S. September 18, 2016.

NY bombings suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghanistan-born American, had travelled multiple times to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and was even married to a Pakistani woman, investigations have revealed.

However, there are contradictory accounts of how Rahami came to the attention of law enforcement.

Mr Bollange said: “I can imagine that if all five of them went off at the same time, that the loss of life could have been enormous if there was an event going on”. He was captured in Linden, New Jersey, after he was discovered sleeping in the doorway of a bar. An unexploded pressure-cooker bomb was found blocks away. “We will direct the full resources of the federal government to make sure that the investigation goes forward aggressively”, Obama said.

Authorities have not drawn any connection between the violence in Minnesota and the bombings in the NY area. In his statement, the president continued to defer specific questions on the ongoing investigations to the FBI and law enforcement officials.