ISLAMABAD: US officials investigating the twin New York and New Jersey bombings have said the main suspect extensively travelled to Afghanistan and spent around a year in Pakistan. But what remains a mystery is where he went to after his Pakistan trip in 2013.
Official documents in Pakistan detail 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami's travel to Pakistan and a short trip to Afghanistan in April 2013. But there is no documented record of his exiting the country.
According to the documents, Rahami, travelled to Pakistan on April 4, 2013 on a US passport number 495762044. He entered Pakistan through the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.
From Pakistan, he entered Afghanistan on April 30 through the Chaman border and returned to Pakistan on the same day.
Sources said that there is no documented record of Rahami returning to the United States from Pakistan.
Sources said it is suspected that the bombing suspect may have used different or fake travel documents to go out of Pakistan.
On Tuesday, the United States charged the Afghan-born American restaurant worker with detonating and planting bombs in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood and along the route of a US Marine Corps run in the New Jersey town of Seaside Park.
He faces 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.
US officials say he was captured while carrying a handwritten journal that lauded Osama bin Laden and US-born Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, and criticized US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
The FBI says they investigated Rahami for terrorism in 2014 following a complaint from his father, but found no link despite alleged acts of violence.
US officials say it still remains unclear how and why exactly Rahami allegedly became radicalized, and whether he definitively acted alone. So far they have found no connection between Rahami and any militant groups.