Chelsea bomb suspect Ahmad Rahami is being taken into custody after shootout in Linden, New Jersey. Screengrab of an abc7NY video via Reuters.
An Afghanistan-born American sought in connection with a series of bombings that wounded 29 people in the New York City area over the weekend has been in custody after a gun battle with police, a New Jersey mayor has said.
Ahmad Khan Rahami of Elizabeth, New Jersey, was captured on Monday after firing at police officers in Linden, New Jersey, about 20 miles (32 km) outside New York, Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage said.
Two officers were shot, one in the hand and the other in a bullet-proof vest, he said.
“Mr Rahami also sustained shots and an ambulance has taken him away,” Bollwage said.
Video from WABC television showed a conscious man described as Rahami on a gurney and being loaded into an ambulance.
Chelsea bomb suspect Ahmad Rahami is being taken into custody after shootout in Linden, New Jersey. Screengrab of an abc7NY video via Reuters.
Investigators believe more people were involved in the New York and New Jersey bombing plots, two US officials told Reuters.
Earlier on Monday, New York Police had released a photo of Rahami, 28, and said they wanted to question him about a Saturday night explosion in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood and for a blast earlier that day in Seaside Park, New Jersey, authorities said.
In addition to the two incidents, officials are probing a backpack containing bombs found in a New Jersey train station on Sunday, and an unexploded pressure-cooker bomb located blocks away from the Chelsea blast site.
An image of Ahmad Khan Rahami, who is wanted for questioning in connection with an explosion in New York City, is seen in a a poster released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on September 19, 2016. FBI/Handout via Reuters
No one was injured in the other blasts.
As reports of Rahami being taken in custody were being released, US President Barack Obama said he saw no connection between the explosions and a separate weekend incident where a man stabbed nine people at a mall in central Minnesota before being shot dead.
He said authorities are investigating the stabbing as a potential act of terrorism.
The man in the Minnesota incident was described a “soldier of the Islamic State,” the militant group’s news agency said on Sunday.
Source: Bd news24
