Monday, September 19, 2016

BREAKING: Chelsea bombing suspect identified as Ahmad Khan Rahami, considered to be armed and dangerous








NEW YORK (AP) — Police released a photo of a 28-year-old immigrant wanted for questioning Monday in the bombing that rocked a Manhattan neighborhood, and the governor and mayor said the blast is looking increasingly like an act of terrorism with a foreign connection.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan with an address in Elizabeth, New Jersey, should be considered armed and dangerous, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in one of a series of TV appearances just minutes after the photo was released.

In addition to the blast in Chelsea on Saturday, a pipe bomb exploded in a New Jersey shore town before a charity 5K race and an unexploded pressure cooker device was found blocks away from the explosion site in Chelsea. On Sunday, five explosive devices were discovered at a New Jersey train station.

Authorities are investigating whether the bombings and explosive devices were related.

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."

"We want to get this guy in for questioning," de Blasio said on CNN. "We need the facts to be able to piece all this together. ... I think we're going to know a lot more in the course of the day. Things are moving very quickly."

Early Monday, FBI agents swarmed an apartment above a fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth that's tied to Rahami. The activity came hours after one of five devices found at the nearby Elizabeth train station exploded while a bomb squad robot attempted to disarm it. No one was injured.

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