Suspect charged over New York and New Jersey bombs

The US has charged Ahmad Khan Rahami with planting bombs in New York and New Jersey, which injured 31 people in Manhattan on Saturday.

Rahami was already charged by the state of New Jersey with the attempted murder of police, during his arrest.

The new federal charges include use of a weapon of mass destruction, bombing, destruction of property and use of a destructive device.

Rahami left 12 fingerprints on one of the bombs he planted and purchased materials for his bombs under his own name on eBay, according to federal charging documents released late on Tuesday.

According to the BBC, the court’s charge sheet claimed that his journal expressed the wish to die a martyr.

"You [USA Government] continue your [unintelligible] slaught[er]" against the mujahideen, or holy warriors, “be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Sham (Syria), Palestine," one passage read.

Though his journal referred to jihad and prominent jihadi figures, the charges suggest that investigators were unable to connect Rahami to a terrorist group, the Guardian reported.

According to a criminal complaint by FBI special agent Peter Frederick Licata, Rahami was responsible for bombs constructed out of a pressure cooker and placed in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday, as well as pipe bombs in New Jersey’s Seaside Park and Elizabeth, the latter of which is where Rahami resided.

According to the complaint, Rahami prepared for the bombings for months.

While the bombs themselves were powerful, they failed to kill anyone. This reportedly appeared to investigators to demonstrate minimal technical sophistication, leading some to believe their designs emerged from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s English-language web magazine ‘Inspire’.