Naturalized citizen from Afghanistan sought in blast

A device explodes as bomb squad tries to disable it near New Jersey station

Authorities are looking for a naturalized citizen from Afghanistan for questioning in a weekend explosion in a Manhattan neighborhood that injured 29 people as the governor conceded on Monday that investigators could no longer rule out international terrorism.

The man sought for questioning was identified as 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he could be armed and dangerous.

Meanwhile, five potential bombs were discovered overnight near a New Jersey station, one of which blew up on Monday as a bomb squad robot tried to disable it, after a weekend of attacks and security alerts in the United States.

The devices were found late on Sunday, a day after a pressure-cooker bomb packed with shrapnel exploded in New York City's Chelsea district, wounding 29 people, and a pipe bomb went off along the route of a New Jersey charity run without hurting anyone. Also on Saturday, a man armed with a knife wounded nine people at a Minnesota shopping mall.

Investigators were probing possible links between the attacks, which came as world leaders begin converging on New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

While officials described the weekend bombs and the Minnesota attack as deliberate, criminal acts and said they were investigating them as potential acts of terrorism, they stopped short of characterizing the motivation behind any of them until more evidence is uncovered.

In the latest incident, five potential explosive devices were found in a backpack left in a trash can near a train station and a bar in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Mayor Christian Bollwage told reporters.

After cordoning off the area, a bomb squad used a robot to cut a wire to try to disable the device, but inadvertently set off an explosion, he said.

No one was hurt, but Bollwage said: "I can imagine that if all five of them went off at the same time, that the loss of life could have been enormous if there was an event going on."

Foreign connection

The incident took place less than 24 kilometers southwest of Manhattan.

Two men discovered the backpack and reported it to police. A similar unexploded device to the one that went off in Chelsea on Saturday was found a few blocks away later that night. Police reviewed surveillance video showing a man leaving both devices earlier that day.

No international militant group has said it was behind the New York blast.

But New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that it looks like the Manhattan bombing could be an act of terrorism with a foreign connection. "Today's information suggests it may be foreign related, but we'll see where it goes," he said.

On Sunday, Cuomo had effectively ruled out a link to international terrorism, saying there was no evidence to suggest that.

A pair of Massachusetts brothers used pressure-cooker bombs to kill three people and wound more than 260 in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

No immediate connections were established between the Minnesota attack and the bombings in New York and New Jersey.