US Federal prosecutors have charged the Afghan-born man suspected of weekend bombings in New York and New Jersey with 10 counts including use of weapons of mass destruction.
They have portrayed him as a jihadist who begged for martyrdom and praised Osama bin Laden.
The suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, bought bomb components on eBay, made a video of himself testing out homemade explosives, and kept a journal expressing outrage at the US "slaughter" of mujahideen in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine, federal officials allege.
"Inshallah [God willing], the sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets. Gun shots to your police. Death to your oppression," Rahami, who came to the United States at the age of 7, wrote in a journal he was carrying when arrested.
Rahami was arrested on Monday in Linden, New Jersey, after a shootout with police that left him with multiple wounds. He was listed in critical but stable condition on Tuesday, and police had not yet been able to interview him in depth, New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill said.
Federal prosecutors from separate districts in New York and New Jersey charged him with four and six counts respectively.
In addition to leaving the bomb that exploded on Saturday evening in the Manhattan district of Chelsea that wounded 31 people, they allege he planted a pipe bomb on the New Jersey shore that injured no one when it exploded on Saturday morning.
He also is accused of planting another pressure-cooker bomb in Chelsea that failed to explode, and multiple devices at a railway station in Elizabeth, New Jersey. One of those exploded as a bomb squad robot attempted to defuse it.
As the charges were made public, the White House for the first time said it appeared the attacks were an act of terrorism.
The three counts of using weapons of mass destruction, one from New York and two from New Jersey, each carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Other parts of Rahami's journal praise "Brother" Osama bin Laden; Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric and leading al-Qaida propagandist who was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011; and Nidal Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.
"I beg... for shahadat [martyrdom] and inshallah this call will be answered," he wrote in a passage expressing concern about getting caught.
An eBay account linked to Rahami bought a precursor chemical used in explosives, circuit boards and ball bearings that matched the explosives and remnants collected at the crime scenes, the documents said.
Earlier on Tuesday Rahami's father said he had reported concerns about his son being involved with militants to the Federal Bureau of Investigations two years ago.
The FBI acknowledged it had investigated Rahami in 2014, but found no "ties to terrorism" and dropped its inquiry.
Reuters
