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NY, NJ ‘bomber’ Rahami inspired by bin Laden: US
WASHINGTON: Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was charged on Tuesday with carrying out multiple bombings in New York and New Jersey, was inspired by “Brother Osama bin Laden”,
WASHINGTON: Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was charged on Tuesday with carrying out multiple bombings in New York and New Jersey, was inspired by “Brother Osama bin Laden”, according to a handwritten journal kept by him.
The journal also had “laudatory references” to Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who was killed in a drone strike in Yemen, and Nidal Hasan, a US army doctor who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, US federal authorities said in a criminal complaint.
Reports said the FBI was hunting for two men possibly connected to one of the bombs planted in New York by Rahami which failed to detonate. The men allegedly “located a piece of luggage on the sidewalk, removed an improvised explosive device from the luggage, and then left the vicinity leaving the device behind.”
Rahami, a 28-year-old naturalised American citizen of Afghan descent, has been charged with using weapons of mass destruction, bombing a public place, destruction of property. The charges will keep him jailed for life if upheld in court.
Rahami was also charged by the state of New Jersey with attempted murder for shooting and wounding two law enforcement officers during the exchange of fire leading to his capture. He was also injured. The journal found in his possession bore a bullet hole, possibly from the shooting, and some parts of it were soaked in his blood.
Though some of the writing was supposedly illegible, according to the federal complaint, there was enough to give a significant amount of insight into his thinking. “You (US government) continue your (unintelligible) slaught(er) against the mujahideen be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Sham (Syria), Palestine …”
The entries concluded on an ominous note: “Inshallah (god willing) the sounds of the bombs will be heard on the streets. Gun shots to your police. Death to your oppression.”
Rahami planted two home-made improvised explosive devices which he built with pressure cookers in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood, one of which exploded and injured 29 people. The other didn’t.
