TerrorismAhmad Khan Rahami’s wife held in UAE for questioning about bomb plot

The wife of t Ahmad Khan Rahami, the man behind the bombings in New Jersey and New York, left the United States just days before the attack.

The Los Angeles Times reports that shortly after she returned to Pakistan, her husband planted homemade bombs in Manhattan and Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The woman, whose name has not been revealed, was intercepted by United Arab Emirates authorities on Monday, where investigators are trying to determine whether she was aware of the bombing plot.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN that there was no further information on Rahami’s wife at present. “There is something to learn in this case study. What radicalized Rahami, and when? Should we have learned something from where he was and when he came back? He went through screenings, but should those screenings be improved?” he asked. 

“What is more urgent is did he have any associates that he was working with?”

Rahami’s family denied all knowledge of the bomb plot.

Maria, his former partner and the mother of his young daughter, told Fox News that he was a “deadbeat dad” who did not pay child support and disliked the U.S. military and homosexuals. He often left to go to Afghanistan and Pakistan for long periods, she said, once for a year between 2013 and 2014. On one occasion, she said, he returned with a new wife and child.

“He seemed standoffish to American culture, but I never thought he would cross the line,” she said. 

Maria, who surname was not given, said she met Rahami, the “class clown,” while they were at Edison High School, and believed he had since become “brainwashed.”

“At one point he left to go to Afghanistan, and two years ago he came back, popped up out of nowhere and he was real religious,” his friend, Flee Jones, told the Boston Herald. 

“And it was shocking. I’m trying to understand what’s going on. I’ve never seen him like this.”

Rahami was not on any terrorist watch lists, but he had a history of arrests and lawsuits. He stabbed his brother, Nasim Rahami, in the leg on 22 August 2014 and was arrested for aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a knife and a firearm.

The court allowed him to walk free even though the arresting officer warned that he was likely a “danger to himself and others.”

He also had numerous encounters with the Elizabeth police since 2009 over his family’s refusal to close their First American Fried Chicken restaurant at 10 p.m., in accordance with municipal ordinance. In 2011 the family sued the police and city officials for discrimination and harassment, but the court sided with the city nd the police and rejected the family’s charges.