"Wanted: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28 year old male, is being sought in connection with the Chelsea bombing," NYPD Assistant Commissioner J. Peter Donald wrote on his Twitter account with a photograph of the suspect.
Wanted: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28 year old male, is being sought in connection with the Chelsea bombing. #nyc pic.twitter.com/hSxhMqO7Qh
— J. Peter Donald (@JPeterDonald) 19 сентября 2016 г.
Minutes later, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce cited Donald’s message with the caption, "Wanted in regards to Chelsea bombing."
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a CNN interview that Rahami, a naturalized US citizen of Afghani origin, could be "armed and a dangerous." In a previous interview with ABC's Good Morning America, de Blasio said the investigation was "definitely leaning" in the direction of terrorism.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that "today's information suggests it may be foreign related, but we'll see where it goes."
Five people were said to be detained earlier in connection with the incident that officials previously declined to link to terrorism.
On Saturday, a total of 29 people have been injured in the explosion that hit New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan on Saturday night. Investigators found a second device that appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone wrapped in a plastic bag on West 27th Street.
On April 15, 2013, two pressure cooker bombs exploded close to the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon killing three people and injuring 264 others.