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A photo released by the NYPD shows the two men walking side-by-side, in the hope that someone will come forward to identify them. Investigators said the pair came upon the airline travel bag Saturday night, took the device out, and continued on with the luggage. Police said they want to examine the bag for possible evidence connected to the Chelsea bombing but the men are not considered suspects. “They are witnesses,” said NYPD chief James Waters, who heads the department’s counterterrorism operations. “There are no criminal charges. They are not in jeopardy of being arrested.” Waters asked the two men to contact police and also requested that anyone who might know them to reach out to detectives.
The Chelsea bomb detonated at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday on West 23rd Street, injuring 29 people and setting off an intense multiagency manhunt that ended two days later with the arrest of Rahami in Linden, New Jersey after a shootout with police officers. Rahami shot and wounded an officer who returned fire, hitting the bombing suspect. Shortly after the Chelsea blast, the unexploded device was found on West 27th Street. A request by the NYPD for information on the men came as local and federal law enforcement continued hunting for clues in the Chelsea bombing and a blast earlier Saturday in Seaside Park, New Jersey.
The NYPD was searching Wednesday for two men captured on a surveillance camera removing an explosive device from a travel bag on a Manhattan street Saturday, blocks from where investigators said Ahmad Khan Rahami left a bomb in a garbage container before it blew up.
A complex web of legal proceedings also emerged Wednesday in the case against Rahami, an Elizabeth, New Jersey resident facing a wide range of federal and state charges. And in New Jersey, those who did business with Rahami’s family or knew him from their fried chicken restaurant offered up a portrait that belied the image of him depicted in court papers as a man bent on waging globally-inspired terrorism in New York and New Jersey. The FBI continued Wednesday with their theory that Rahami acted alone but were not closing off the possibility that he had help, said William Sweeney, the new FBI Special Agent in Charge for the New York office. “As far as whether he’s a lone actor,” Sweeney said, “that’s still the path we are following but we’re keeping all the options open.”
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the first prosecution of Rahami will take place in Manhattan federal court, and his office has filed court papers to have U.S. Marshals bring the 28-year-old from New Jersey where he remained hospitalized Wednesday. “This is the appropriate and right place for the case to proceed initially,” Bharara said, adding that the most damage occurred in Manhattan, despite bombs blowing up in New Jersey and Rahami engaging in a shootout when he was caught. Investigators have said that Rahami placed an explosive device in Seaside Park Saturday morning before the start of a charity running race. No one was injured when the device detonated but the race was canceled.
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Still there is not one person in Obama's sick government who has the BALLS to say that this was a terror incident............................. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/authoriti...found-nyc-102914938--abc-news-topstories.html He was arrested after a shootout with police.
Police began looking for the men after they were seen in security video handling a bag prosecutors say was used by bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami to conceal an explosive that failed to detonate in Manhattan. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Wednesday the two men have since returned home to Egypt. The official wasn't authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
U.S. investigators have notified Egyptian authorities they want to question the men. "They're not in any jeopardy of being arrested," Jim Watters, chief of the New York Police Department's counterterrorism unit, said last week. "We have no reason to believe they're connected." Rahami has been accused of detonating a pipe bomb in a New Jersey shore town and a pressure cooker bomb in New York on Sept. 17. No one was injured in the Jersey blast, and 31 people were injured in the New York blast. Surveillance video shows Rahami rolling a suitcase down a Manhattan street, then abandoning it on the sidewalk where that unexploded device was found, authorities said.
A few minutes later, two men pass by the luggage and appear to admire it, police said. They then remove a pressure cooker from the luggage, leave the pressure cooker on the sidewalk and walk away with the luggage, police said. "I think they were more interested in the bag, not what they were taking out," Watters said, adding that they were "very, very lucky" the bomb didn't explode. Rahami has been hospitalized since he was caught following a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey, last week, days after the bombings. Officials on Tuesday said he remained unconscious. He has not made an initial court appearance, and his American Civil Liberties Union lawyers declined to comment.
News from The Associated Press
