New York, New Jersey Bombings: Suspect Wounded, Arrested after Shootout

Zacheaus Somorin with agency report

Ahmad Khan Rahami, the man suspected in bombings in New York and New Jersey, has been arrested after a shootout with police, sources said.
Two officers have been hit in the shootout with Ahmad Khan Rahami in Linden, New Jersey, the mayor of the nearby city of Elizabeth said. One officer’s vest was struck, and the other was shot in the hand.

The shootout happened Monday in Linden, New Jersey. Rahami was taken to an ambulance in a stretcher with his right shoulder bloodied and bandaged. Ahmad Khan Rahami, the man wanted for questioning in connection with bombings in New York and Seaside Park, New Jersey, is also believed to be connected to the pipe bombs found in a backpack Sunday night in Elizabeth, New Jersey, sources said.

New York police announced earlier that they have been looking for ahami for questioning in connection with the Saturday bombing in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, which injured 29 people. Bombings in New York and New Jersey over the weekend — as well as the discovery
of several unexploded devices — have led authorities to believe there may be a terror cell at work in those two states, law enforcement officials told CNN Monday.

Earlier Saturday, a garbage can exploded near the starting line of a Marine Corps charity run in Seaside Park, New Jersey. And on Sunday night, a backpack with multiple bombs inside was found in Elizabeth, New Jersey. As authorities tried to investigate, one of those bombs exploded. The series of attacks come as New York hosts world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week.

Officials want to question Ahmad Khan Rahami because they believe he is the man seen in surveillance videos rolling a duffel bag near the scene of the bombing in Chelsea, according to multiple officials. The FBI described Rahami as a naturalized U.S. citizen of Afghan descent with a last known address in Elizabeth, New Jersey — the same city where an explosives-laden backback was found Sunday night.

Rahami is about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs about 200 pounds.
Rahami has brown hair, brown eyes and brown facial hair. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that the bombs found over the weekend have similarities, suggesting “there might have been a common linkage.” He said the investigation is ongoing, and he “wouldn’t be surprised if it zeroes in on a particular individual, today even,” and he “wouldn’t be surprised if we found a foreign connection to the act.”

A federal law enforcement official said BBs and ball bearings were among the pieces of metal that appeared to be packed into two pressure cooker bombs in New York. One of those devices exploded on 23rd Street, but the fact that it was partly under a metal trash container may have diminished the force of the blast.

Surveillance videos showed the same man near the site of the explosion in Chelsea and where a pressure-cooker device was found four blocks away, several local and federal law enforcement sources told CNN.