Law enforcement officials had been alerted as early as 2014 that Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in this weekend’s attempted bombings in New York and New Jersey, was becoming radicalized and could carry out terrorist attacks, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Rahami was arrested on Monday morning in connection to the bombings that occurred in New York City and New Jersey over the weekend.
The suspect’s father, Mohammad Rahami, told New Jersey police two years ago that his son was a terrorist, according to the Times.
The father made the statement about his son being a terrorist to New Jersey police in 2014, when Mr. Rahami was arrested after a domestic dispute and accused of stabbing his brother.
The information was passed to the Joint Terrorism Task Force led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Newark. Officers opened what is known as an assessment, the most basic of FBI investigations, and interviewed the father, who then recanted.
Rahami’s father also briefly spoke to the media on Tuesday morning and reiterated that he had told the FBI of his son’s radical leanings.
"Yes, I called the FBI," he told the media as he drove off, the New York Post reported.
The Times reported that they could not confirm if law enforcement officials interviewed Rahami at the time of his father’s allegations.