US: Afghan-born suspect charged with NY attack

US prosecutors said Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, carried out twin bombings on Saturday in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and along the route of a US Marine Corps run in the New Jersey town of Seaside Park. The 13-page indictment slapped him with four charges, including use of weapons of mass destruction, bombing a place of public use and destruction of property by means of fire or explosives.

He was captured on Monday while carrying a handwritten journal that lauded Osama bin Laden and US-born Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, and criticised US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, it said. He will be transported to Manhattan to face the charges, said federal prosecutors in New York. If convicted, he risks spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Prosecutors said 31 people were wounded in the Chelsea attack, including a victim from Britain, a driver knocked unconscious and a woman whose body was pierced with ball bearings, metal and wood. 

The bomb was a pressure cooker device, packed with ball bearings and steel nuts, placed in a dumpster and detonated by a timed device – similar to a second pressure cooker bomb discovered four blocks away.