What we know about suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami

The FBI looked into NY bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami two years ago after his father called with concerns his son was a terrorist, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.

An Afghan immigrant wanted for questioning about the bombings that rocked New York City and New Jersey has been captured. “And there’s no better example of that than the people of NY and New Jersey”.

Rahami’s father told reporters Tuesday outside the family’s fried-chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey, that he called the Federal Bureau of Investigation two years ago. Rahami has been “directly linked” to the devices used in the NY and New Jersey explosions on Saturday, FBI official Bill Sweeney said.

New York’s mayor called the bombing that injured 29 people in the bustling Chelsea district “an act of terror”.

Ahmad Khan Rahami is in custody this morning facing five counts of attempted murder of police officers and gun charges.

Authorities said in news conference Monday that they are “not actively” seeking anyone else at this time. His face was clearly captured by surveillance cameras near the spot of the blast.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Rahami was born in Afghanistan and moved to the U.S. with his family.

As police searched for Ahmad Rahami on Monday, the owner of a bar in Linden found a man sleeping in his hallway.

He was later charged with five counts of attempting to murder law enforcement officers, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful objective, U.S. television networks said.

The charges were announced late in the day by Acting Union County Prosecutor Grace Park. Messages left for family members were not immediately returned. It wasn’t clear when Rahami would get an attorney.

William Sweeney, the FBI’s assistant director in NY, said on Monday that that at the time of the bombing, Rahami was apparently not on the FBI’s radar.

He stressed that investigators at this point saw no connection between the incidents on the East Coast and the Minnesota stabbings, where police said the assailant made “some references to Allah” in carrying out the attack.

The FBI has said that Rahami, an Afghanistan-born USA citizen, doesn’t seem to have been working with a larger terrorist cell.

Rahami’s family, who runs a 24-hour chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, has a history of clashes with neighbours over the timing of the eatery. The lawsuit was terminated in 2012 after one of the brothers, Mohammed K. Rahami, pleaded guilty to blocking police from enforcing restrictions on the restaurant.

Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalized USA citizen from Elizabeth, New Jersey, was taken into custody hours after authorities identified him as the prime suspect in the Saturday night blast.

A high school classmate, Hakeen Ezzouhairy, on Facebook described Rahami as a “class clown, very amusing, nice guy”. “That’s what’s so scary”.

He is also believed to be connected to pipe bombs found Sunday night in Elizabeth, New Jersey, sources told CNN. No one was injured there.

Police were investigating the suggestion that the bombs contained HMTD, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine – a high explosive that is relative easy for terrorists to “home brew” from instructions found on the internet.

As FBI agents removed bags of evidence from the restaurant Monday, officials and residents recalled Rahami and his family, who shared an apartment over the business.

Rahami majored in criminal justice at a small college in Edison, New Jersey, but never graduated.

A law enforcement official told CNN Rahami was petitioning to bring his wife to the United States.

“In August 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation initiated an assessment of Ahmad Rahami based upon comments made by his father after a domestic dispute that were subsequently reported to authorities”, the agency said in a statement.

Also on Saturday, a man stabbed and injured nine people at a mall in the northern US state of Minnesota before a police officer fatally shot him. The officers shot had non-life-threatening injuries, NBC News reported.

The confrontation sparked a shootout that ended in Rahami’s capture. “As Americans, we will not give in to fear”, he said.

Although there has been no claim of responsibility for the NY or New Jersey bombs, a jihadist-linked news agency, Amaq, claimed that an IS “soldier” carried out the Minnesota stabbings.