NY bomb suspect frequently visited Pakistan

Afghan-born American is also a suspect in a bombing on Saturday at a New Jersey charity run

In the latest of a series of developments in the New York bombing case, reports reveal the prime suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, travelled several times to Pakistan.



According to local media reports, the Afghan-born American, who lived and worked with his parents, had grown a beard and started wearing traditional Muslim clothes after a series of visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan. People in the neighbourhood observed that Rahami "appeared to have been radicalised on his return from the countries."

Flee Jones, who grew up with Rahami, said that when he returned from one of the trips, he had a beard and wore traditional Muslim robes. "He started praying regularly in the back of the family's chicken restaurant. It’s like he was a completely different person," he said. “He got serious and completely closed off.”



According to CNN, 28-year old Rahami travelled to Quetta in July 2011 where he married a Pakistani woman. He made a second trip to Pakistan two years later, and stayed there for a year.

Rahami was taken into custody on Monday after being wounded in an exchange of gunfire with police officers in Linden, just outside Elizabeth, a working-class city about 20 miles southwest of New York City with a large immigrant population.

Authorities suspect him of setting off a bomb that wounded 29 people in Manhattan on Saturday, as well as leaving a bag with five other devices in New Jersey on Sunday, one of which exploded without causing injury.

He is also a suspect in a bombing on Saturday at a New Jersey charity run that hurt no one. It was not clear whether Rahami had a lawyer yet.



Rahami was not listed on US counterterrorism databases, three US officials told Reuters. But his family was well known to Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage for the frequent complaints, dating back to at least 2008, about noise at their restaurant on a commercial strip of Elizabeth.

“The suspect was not on the radar of local law enforcement, but the fried chicken place that … the family owned, we had some code enforcement problems and noise complaints,” Bollwage told reporters.

Investigators believe more people were involved in the New York and New Jersey bombing incidents, two US officials said. The motive behind the bombings was not immediately clear, though New York Governor Andrew Cuomo described it as an apparent act of “terrorism.”