The authorities are looking for the two men who took a bomb out of a bag,left the bomb and walked away with the bag.
Ahmad Rahami Was Inspired by Al Qaeda and ISIS,His Notebook Suggests.
A bloody and tattered page from a notebook of the man who is charged with carrying out bombings last weekend in New York and New Jersey suggests that he drew inspiration not just from Al Qaeda, but also the Islamic State.
On a list of international terrorist leaders written in the notebook, according to investigators, was the name of a founding member of the Islamic State who called on Muslims around the world to take up whatever arms they could find and spill the blood of nonbelievers.
At the same time, more details emerged about the man charged, Ahmad Khan Rahami, and his activities on the day he is said to have carried out the attacks.
After a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, N.J., on Saturday morning — one of the two bombings Mr. Rahami is accused of carrying out — he was seen in Elizabeth, N.J., where he lived in an apartment above his family’s chicken restaurant.
He visited a hair salon next door to his home early Saturday afternoon along with two men and two women, according to the salon owner’s wife, Sonia Reyes.
Ms. Reyes said she knew Mr. Rahami well as a neighbor and frequent customer and was used to him bringing in new clients, often cousins.
But Ms. Reyes said she had not seen the people he was with on Saturday, hours before the bombing that injured 31 people in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
According to a criminal complaint filed against Mr. Rahami in federal court on Tuesday, he was recorded driving into Manhattan using the Lincoln Tunnel at around 6:30 p.m., two hours before the bombing, and that he stayed in the city until 11:30 p.m. He left the city through the Lincoln Tunnel as well.
The questions about where Mr. Rahami drew his inspiration and whether he had help are at the center of the investigation.
The Islamic State figure he cited in the notebook, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, was killed in an American drone strike in Syria in August.
Mr. Rahami, in the notebook, refers to “Dawla,” meaning “State,” which is a reverential way in which ISIS supporters refer to their movement.
But Ms. Reyes said she had not seen the people he was with on Saturday, hours before the bombing that injured 31 people in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
According to a criminal complaint filed against Mr. Rahami in federal court on Tuesday, he was recorded driving into Manhattan using the Lincoln Tunnel at around 6:30 p.m., two hours before the bombing, and that he stayed in the city until 11:30 p.m. He left the city through the Lincoln Tunnel as well.
The questions about where Mr. Rahami drew his inspiration and whether he had help are at the center of the investigation.
The Islamic State figure he cited in the notebook, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, was killed in an American drone strike in Syria in August.
Mr. Rahami, in the notebook, refers to “Dawla,” meaning “State,” which is a reverential way in which ISIS supporters refer to their movement.
Mr. Adnani’s message continues to resonate, especially his call for Muslims to take violent action.
“We will strike you in your homeland,” he warned foreign governments in 2014. And he urged Muslims to attack in any manner they could: “Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car,” he said, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist propaganda.
In his notebook, Mr. Rahami makes reference to more recent comments Mr. Adnani made, before his death, calling on Muslims in Western countries not to try to travel to Syria, but instead to plan attacks wherever they were.
The authorities are also searching for two men who apparently stumbled on one of the bombs planted in Manhattan on Saturday evening and took the explosive device out of a bag before walking away with the bag — although officials said they were not believed to be part of the plot.
On Wednesday, investigators, who believe the bag might be a valuable piece of evidence, released images of the men — one wearing a pink golf shirt and the other wearing a light brown button-down collared shirt. The images were taken from surveillance video that shows them walking on 27th Street between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue in Chelsea between 8 and 9 p.m. on Saturday.
The authorities said they did not believe the men were tied to Mr. Rahami.
“We have no reason to believe they’re connected,” Chief James Waters, head of the New York Police Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, said at a news conference Wednesday morning.
The city police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said they were considered “witnesses.”
In fact, several law enforcement officials have suggested that the men might have inadvertently prevented even greater carnage, perhaps jostling the bomb when they removed it and causing it to fail to explode.
Mr. Rahami is recovering in New Jersey from wounds he sustained in a shootout with the police on Monday morning, when he was taken into custody.
The United States attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch, said on Wednesday that the government would bring Mr. Rahami to New York to face charges.
“In the near future, it is our intention to bring the defendant to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York,” she said in remarks made in Washington.
The authorities said they did not believe the men were tied to Mr. Rahami.
“We have no reason to believe they’re connected,” Chief James Waters, head of the New York Police Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, said at a news conference Wednesday morning.
The city police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said they were considered “witnesses.”
In fact, several law enforcement officials have suggested that the men might have inadvertently prevented even greater carnage, perhaps jostling the bomb when they removed it and causing it to fail to explode.
Mr. Rahami is recovering in New Jersey from wounds he sustained in a shootout with the police on Monday morning, when he was taken into custody.
The United States attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch, said on Wednesday that the government would bring Mr. Rahami to New York to face charges.
“In the near future, it is our intention to bring the defendant to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York,” she said in remarks made in Washington.
