FBI looking for two men wanted over unexploded New York device

The FBI are seeking to trace two men who allegedly removed an unexploded device from a suitcase in New York on Saturday.

Detectives said they would like to speak to the men and recover the luggage.

The undetonated device was safely removed from 27th Street in Chelsea by a bomb squad.

The Afghan-born US citizen charged with bombings in New York and New Jersey over the weekend could face a judge from his hospital bed.

A lawyer for Ahmad Khan Rahami asked a federal judge to schedule his first court appearance for today, despite Rahami continuing to receive hospital treatment after being injured in a shootout with police on Monday.

If Rahami can’t leave Newark hospital to travel to the US District Court in Manhattan, he could formally face his charges from his bed.

"He has been held and questioned by federal law enforcement agents since his arrest," David Patton, head of the New York city federal public defenders office said in a court filing.

"The Sixth Amendment requires that he be given access tocounsel on the federal charges, and that he be presented without delay."

Patton also asked to meet with Rahami, 28, on Wednesday.

Police say they have not yet been able to interview Rahami.

The White House has condemned the attacks in New York and New Jersey as an "act of terrorism".

As the charges against Ahmad Khan Rahami were made public the White House made its statement, previously it had withheld making an assessment on what had happened until a motive could be discerned.

Ahmad Khan Rahami bought bomb making equipment 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 prosecutors allege.

The charging documents and accompanying sworn statements from the FBI were unsealed in a Manhattan federal court and shed new light on Rahami's motives.

His journal apparently expressed the wish to die a martyr, the criminal complaint revealed.

One passage of his journal is said to have read: "Inshallah (God willing), the sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets. Gun shots to your police. Death to your oppression."

Other parts of the 28-year-old's journal allegedly praise "Brother" Osama bin Laden; Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric and leading al Qaeda propagandist who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011; and Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

An eBay account linked to Rahami bought chemicals, circuit boards and ball bearings that matched the explosives and remnants collected at the crime scenes, the documents said.

Video found on a family member's mobile phone dated two days before the bombings showed Rahami lighting a fuse and igniting incendiary material packed in a partially buried cylinder.

The number of people injured in the New York bombing has risen to at least 31 and includes one British national, the prosecutors office said in a statement.

New York bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami has been charged with planting bombs in New York City and New Jersey.

The 28-year-old was charged with four counts, including use of weapons of mass destruction and bombing a public place.

The father of the Afghanistan-born suspect in the New York bombing attacks over the weekend reportedly told police two years ago that his son was a terrorist - but later retracted his statement.

Two senior law enforcement officials told the New York Times that Ahmad Khan Rahami's father had reported his son to police as a terrorist in 2014 after Rahami was arrested for stabbing his brother.

The official said the FBI looked into the matter, but that Mohammad Rahami, retracted his comment and said he meant his son was spending time with the wrong crowd.

The FBI reviewed its databases and found no credible connection to terrorism or threat to the US from the son, the official said.

The newspaper also reported that another official said Rahami was carrying a notebook containing writings sympathetic to jihadist causes when he was captured following a shoot-out on Monday.

US investigators said that bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami passed secondary screening at customs when he returned to the USA from trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Officials were looking for clues as to why Rahami may have planted bombs in the New York area, including whether he was radicalised overseas or had accomplices.

Union County prosecutors charged Rahami with five counts of attempted murder in the first degree and two second-degree weapons charges after he was detained following a shootout with police on Monday.

He was in critical but stable condition as a result of his wounds but has not been interviewed in depth, New York Police Department Commissioner James O'Neill said on Tuesday.

More charges are expected to be brought against him in federal court after what New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called "an act of terror".

The wife of bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami left the United States days before the explosions in New York and New Jersey, according to reports.

An unnamed law enforcement source told CNN officials are working with their counterparts in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates to get in touch with her.

Rahami married his wife in Pakistan and brought her to the USA but she left the country days before the attacks, it is reported.

Suspected bomber Ahmad Rahami was caught on CCTV moments before the Manhattan bombing apparently carrying explosives in a suitcase.

CBS News released the footage taken at 23rd Street in Chelsea, near to the site of Saturday's explosion, dragging a wheeled bag behind him that police said contained a shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker explosive.

The device used in the Manhattan attack was similar to that used at the Boston Marathon bombing.

The footage was captured by one of more than 8,000 cameras added to the New York streets since the 9/11 attacks as part of the city's 'Ring of Steel'.