Bomb suspect vowed 'death to your oppression,' feds say

NEW YORK (AP) - He bought bomb ingredients on eBay and recorded a mirthful video of himself igniting a blast in a backyard. In a handwritten journal, he warned bombs would resound in the streets and prayed he'd be martyred rather than caught, authorities say.

Ahmad Khan Rahami's jihad journal ended with a stark message, according to court papers:

"Death to your oppression."

Federal court complaints filed Tuesday gave a chilling glimpse into what authorities say motivated the Afghan-born U.S. citizen to set off explosives last weekend in New York City and New Jersey, including a bomb that injured 31 people in Manhattan. The blasts came two years after the FBI looked into him but came up with nothing tying him to terrorism.

Rahami remains hospitalized with gunshot wounds from a shootout with police that led to his capture Monday outside a bar in Linden, New Jersey. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had a lawyer who could comment on the charges against him, which include federal terror crimes and state charges of attempting to murder police officers.

Rahami ordered citric acid, ball bearings and electronic igniters on eBay and had them delivered to a Perth Amboy, New Jersey, business where he worked until Sept. 12, the court complaints said. San Jose, California-based eBay Inc. noted the products are legal and widely available and said the company had worked with law enforcement on the investigation.

Just two days before Saturday's bombings, a relative's cell phone recorded Rahami igniting incendiary material in a cylinder buried in a backyard, the fuse being lighted, a loud noise and flames, "followed by billowing smoke and laughter," the complaints said.

And the complaints said in his bloodied journal - damaged by shots from his gun battle with police - he fumed the U.S. government was slaughtering Muslim holy warriors and alluded to plans for revenge.

One portion expressed concern at the prospect of being caught before being able to carry out a suicide attack and the desire to be a martyr. Another section included a reference to "pipe bombs" and a "pressure cooker bomb" and declared: "In the streets they plan to run a mile," an apparent reference to one of the blast sites, a charity run in Seaside Park, New Jersey.

"The sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets," the journal declared.

There also were laudatory references to Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki - the American-born Muslim cleric who was killed in a 2011 drone strike and whose preaching has inspired other acts of violence - and Nidal Hasan, the former Army officer who went on a deadly shooting rampage in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas, the complaints said.

The FBI has said Rahami apparently was not on its radar at the time of the bombing. However, he was in 2014, when the FBI opened up an "assessment" - its least intrusive form of inquiry - based on comments from his father after a domestic dispute, the bureau said in a statement.

"The FBI conducted internal database reviews, interagency checks and multiple interviews, none of which revealed ties to terrorism," the bureau said.

The FBI has faced questions before about whether it could have done more ahead of time to determine whether attackers had terrorist aspirations. The issue arose after the Orlando massacre in June, for instance, when FBI Director James Comey said agents a few years earlier had looked into the gunman, Omar Mateen, but did not find enough information to pursue charges or keep him under investigation.