Chelsea Bombing Suspect Investigated By FBI Two Years Ago, Turned In By Father

By Brandon Turbeville

As has become the norm in terrorist attacks in the Western world, reports are now coming from the mainstream media that the suspect in the recent Chelsea bombing in New York and New Jersey, Ahmad Rahami, was known to the FBI before conducting his attacks over this past weekend.

Interestingly enough, the first acknowledgement of the fact that Rahami was known to the FBI came from Rahami’s father who cryptically shouted to reporters that he reported his son to the FBI two years ago.

As The Guardian reports,

The father of the man suspected in bombings in New York City and New Jersey contacted the FBI following a 2014 stabbing to express concerns that his son was a terrorist, he told reporters on Tuesday.

“Two years ago I go to the FBI because my son was doing really bad, OK?” Mohammed Rahami told the New York Times. “But they check almost two months, they say, ‘He’s OK, he’s clean, he’s not a terrorist.’ I say OK.”

He added: “Now they say he is a terrorist. I say OK.”

The Guardian continues,

A law enforcement official told the Associated Press that the FBI looked into the matter, but that Mohammed Rahami later retracted his comment and said he meant that his son, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was hanging out with the wrong crowd, including gangs.

The FBI reviewed its databases and found no credible connection to terrorism or threat to the US from the son, the official said.

Ahmad Khan Rahami was arrested for stabbing a person in the leg and possession of a firearm in 2014. But a grand jury declined to indict him, despite a warning from the arresting officer that Rahami was likely “a danger to himself or others”.

The New York Times goes further, however, in explaining the possible motivation Rahami may have had. The news agency reports,

It is not clear if officers ever interviewed Ahmad Rahami, but as investigators turn their focus to what might have motivated, inspired or led him to plant bombs in Chelsea in Manhattan and on the Jersey Shore, new clues are emerging indicating that he may have been increasingly receptive to extremist ideology.

When Mr. Rahami was captured during a shootout with the police on Monday, the authorities found a notebook, pierced with a bullet hole and covered in blood, expressing opinions sympathetic to jihadist causes, according to a law enforcement official who agreed to speak about the investigation only on the condition of anonymity.

In one section of the book, Mr. Rahami wrote of “killing the kuffar,” or unbelievers, the official said. Mr. Rahami also praised Anwar al-Awlaki, Al Qaeda’s leading propagandist, who died in a drone strike in Yemen, as well as the soldier in the Fort Hood shooting, one of the deadliest “lone wolf” attacks inspired by Al Qaeda.

Five years after his death in a drone strike in Yemen ordered by President Obama, Mr. Awlaki remains a powerful influence on would-be jihadists, especially in the English-speaking West. Among his documented admirers were Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif.; Omar Mateen, who fatally shot 49 people in an Orlando nightclub; and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who staged an attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon with pressure-cooker bombs in 2013.

Thousands of Mr. Awlaki’s lectures and jihadist declarations are available on the web, as is Inspire magazine, which has published detailed instructions for making pipe bombs as well as more sophisticated explosive devices using pressure cookers and Christmas lights, the same components used in the New York-area bombs.

Indeed, Anwar al-Awlaki is known to have links to a number of high-profile terrorists including Nidal Malik Hasan of the Ft. Hood Shootings, Umar Farouk Adbulmutallab aka the “underwear bomber,”Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al Midhar and Hani Hanjour of the 9/11 attacks and a number of others.

Awlaki’s connections to such a high number of high-profile terrorist attacks as well as his connections to US intelligence was what led Webster Tarpley to label him as “an obvious US double agent who has been used to give the Al Qaeda seal of approval to dozens of terrorists.”

It is also important to note that, in the months after 9/11, Awlaki had dined at the Pentagon. As CBS News reported in its article, “Qaeda-Linked Imam Dined at Pentagon after 9/11,”

Anwar al-Awlaki – the radical spiritual leader linked to several 9/11 attackers, the Fort Hood shooting, and the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an airliner – was a guest at the Pentagon in the months after 9/11, a Pentagon official confirmed to CBS News.

Awlaki was invited as “…part of an informal outreach program” in which officials sought contact “…with leading members of the Muslim community,” the official said. At that time, Awlaki was widely viewed as a “moderate” imam at a mosque in Northern Virginia.

At the same time, the FBI was also interviewing Awlaki about his contacts with three of the 9/11 attackers – Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al Midhar and Hani Hanjour – who were all part of the crew of five that hijacked the American Airlines jet that hit the Pentagon.

Overall, Rahami is suspected of having been the perpetrator behind a bomb that went off in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York which killed 29 people and for a bomb that went off in Seaside Park, New Jersey earlier that day. Explosives were also found in Elizabeth, New Jersey, not far from the Rahami home.

Is This A False Flag?

One key aspect suggesting a false flag that should be looked for soon after the attack is any possible connection the suspect or group of suspects may have had with intelligence agencies. A connection to any one of these organizations and institutions may go some length in explaining how the attack was coordinated, the motivation of the perpetrators, the actual involvement (or not) of the suspects, and who actually directed the operation. For instance, on 9/11, many of the alleged hijackers had previously had close contact with the FBI, CIA, and other high-level intelligence agencies (both home and abroad).[1] Likewise, the Tsarnaev brothers who have been accused of masterminding and carrying out the Boston Bombing had ties to the FBI before the attack.

In many instances, connections to certain military agencies and communities should serve as the same red flag as connections to intelligence agencies since these institutions have largely been blended together.

After fifteen years of a post-9/11 world, we have now entered a time where one does not hear of a terrorist attack and reasonably assume it to be legitimate until proven otherwise but, quite the opposite, would be justified in assuming that it is of the false flag variety unless proven legitimate. Because of the track record of Western governments, the odds are now greater that such incidents are entirely controlled by intelligence agencies or, at the very least, allowed to happen in order to continue to push the fear and panic needed to maintain a police state and constant culture of warfare. Still, there is not enough evidence to claim either way.

While we cannot definitively say that this attack was a false flag – Rahami had a history of disturbing and violent behavior – we also cannot rule out the possibility that it was a false flag. It is very possible that a disturbed individual simply lashed out at society in the most effective way he saw fit. As a result of the West’s open immigration policies, there have been a sizeable influx of opportunistic economic migrants who hold true to their fundamentalist religions and customs that put them at odds with civilization itself, much less Western civilization. Such policies are bound to produce organic acts of terror at some point, particularly taken in the context of the immense hatred the West has brought upon itself as the result of numerous immoral and illegal wars overseas. At the same time, given the fact that the FBI did indeed have information and connections to him, it is possible that he is yet another psychopathic pawn in a larger game.

At this point, we simply do not know enough about the events or the attacker to make claims either way. Regardless, we must acknowledge the prior connections to the FBI and add this important piece of information to the collection and continue to observe these events with skepticism and discernment.

Notes:

[1] Griffin, David Ray. The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11. Interlink Publishing Group. 1st Edition. 2004.

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Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 850 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

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