Authorities on Tuesday announced a slew of charges against Ahmad Khan Rahami for planting bombs in New York City and several locations in New Jersey over the weekend.
In separate complaints filed in U.S. District Court in the Empire and Garden States, Rahami was charged with several counts of using weapons of mass destruction, bombing a place of public use, and attempting to destroy property by means of fire or explosives.
These charges come one day after Rahami was charged with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and two second-degree weapons charges for engaging in a shootout with police officers who apprehended him on Monday as he slept outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey.
Rahami, who is from the nearby town of Elizabeth, is accused of planting explosive devices in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood that injured 31 people. Other devices allegedly planted by Rahami near an Elizabeth train station and in the New Jersey town of Seaside Park did not cause physical harm.
The federal complaint filed against him alleges that Rahami planned the attacks for months and documented his “extremist Islamic ideology” in a notebook, where he allegedly praised other terrorist figures and wrote about shooting police officers, according to The New York Times.
Rahami is recovering from surgery related to gunshot wounds sustained during that exchange of gunfire at University Hospital in Newark. Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), who received a classified briefing from the FBI, told NBC that federal agents have attempted to question Rahami in the hospital but that he has not cooperated.
A press release from the Department of Justice said that Rahami will first face charges in federal court in Manhattan.
Way to go Ahmad. Your jihadi bombing attack was thwarted by dumpster divers. Intelligence agencies got your unexploded bomb to examine. No one was killed. And you were captured alive within two days. No virgins for you!
This is ISIL-worldwide.
Thanks Dick and George for the vacuum, heck of a job!
I don’t get the weapons of mass destruction charge.
Per Wikipedia
Those pressure-cooker bombs aren’t weapons of mass destruction.
A mass murder only consists of 3 deaths or more. Mass destruction is a bit of a subjective term and doesn’t actually have to have what might be commonly considered ‘mass’.
The Boston Marathon Bombers were credited with ‘WMD’ although they just used a pressure cooker.
I think intent matters and the term, WMD, is overused by media, law enforcement and whomsoever to suit their own purposes.