Police have captured New Jersey resident Ahmad Khan Rahami, who was listed as "wanted" in connection with the bombings in New York and New Jersey on Saturday that left 29 injured, NPR reports.
According to the report, the 28-year-old Rahami was captured after a shootout with police in Linden, N.J., and was shown on local TV stations just before noon on a stretcher with wounds on his upper arm or shoulder.
The FBI and the New York City Police Department want to question Rahami about the Saturday-night explosion in the city's Chelsea neighborhood, and the New Jersey State Police also want to investigate him regarding another explosion at Seaside Park in that state.
“We have a lot to connect him to the Seaside Heights device, to the 27th Street device, to the 23rd Street device,” a law-enforcement official told the New York Times, according to Gothamist. “And in all likelihood the Elizabeth[, N.J.,] train station device—which is a half-mile from his residence."
However, the official said that while there was no direct evidence linking Rahami to international terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State group or al-Qaida, there is much left to uncover in the case.
“We don’t know his particular ideology or what his inspiration was or whether he was directed or whether he was inspired,” the official said. “We don’t have any of that. So, the ideology, the connection to international terrorism, we might flesh that out as we go through the results of search warrants, looking for computers, discs, things like this. Search warrants that we did Sunday night at the residence in Elizabeth,” the official added.
Rahami is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan.
NPR reports that investigators searched several New Jersey homes Monday. A cellphone attached to an explosive that did not detonate led them to the suspect's father, which later led them to Rahami himself.
Earlier this morning, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN that authorities are moving quickly to figure out the cause behind the bombs.
"We need the facts to be able to piece all this together and to find, was it an individual, was it more than one individual, do these different incidents relate?" de Blasio said. "I think we're going to know a lot more in the course of today. Things are moving very quickly, and certainly we're going to have a lot more to say in just the next coming hours."
According to NPR, in 2011, Rahami's father and other family members filed a lawsuit against the city of Elizabeth, the Police Department and other defendants, claiming that authorities were harassing the family and targeting their business, First American Fried Chicken, based on their religion, national origin and race.
The lawsuit is unresolved, NPR notes.