Kevin McCoy, and Kevin Johnson

USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Hours before the FBI released a photo of bomb suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami in an urgent appeal for the public's help Monday, federal investigators recovered a crucial piece of information allegedly linking the 28-year-old Afghan immigrant to a series of planted devices, including the powerful explosive that injured 29 people Saturday night in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

Authorities lifted a fingerprint from an unexploded pressure-cooker device, which, along with surveillance video allegedly showing a man resembling Rahami wheeling a suitcase carrying crude explosive devices to two downtown locations, launched investigators on a fast-moving manhunt that ended some 50 hours later with Rahami's arrest a few miles from the suspect's New Jersey home.

Rahami was charged later Monday with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer after a shootout with police on a New Jersey street.

The fingerprint was key to providing much-needed focus to an inquiry that now shifts to determine the suspect's possible motivation, a federal law enforcement official who is not authorized to comment publicly told USA TODAY on Monday.

Although some officials initially feared that a larger terror cell may have been responsible for the placement of explosives at two locations in New Jersey and on two separate streets in downtown New York, the FBI and New York authorities appeared to foreclose that possibility Monday, saying that no other suspects were being pursued.

"There is no other individual we are looking for,'' New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a afternoon briefing at New York Police Department headquarters.

Captured following a shootout with Linden, N.J., police before noon Monday, investigators are now attempting to unravel Rahami's recent communications, travel, how he allegedly acquired bomb-making materials and what drove him to select such obscure targets for attacks.

Earlier, federal investigators converged on the stocky suspect's family home above a fried chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, N.J., where the suspect is believed to have lived. It was not immediately clear that the explosives were assembled there, the federal law enforcement official said, adding that other possible locations may have been used.

Five people were questioned at length overnight and early Monday, but FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney said none of them had been charged. And none of the five, described as family members and people familiar with the suspect, were detained further after questioning.

While it was not immediately clear whether Rahami — shot three times during a confrontation with Linden, N.J., police — is cooperating with authorities, his wounds did not appear life-threatening, a federal law enforcement official said.

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Born in Afghanistan in 1988, federal authorities described Rahami as a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J., who represents the district where Rahami lived, said the suspect appears to have been married and traveled to south Asia in recent years. Sires said Rahami contacted his office in 2014 by email from Pakistan, where he was having a problem getting a visa for his wife to enter the country because she had an expired Pakistani passport.

“The consulate told her she would have to renew her passport before she could get an immigrant visa, but then they found out she was 35 weeks pregnant,” Sires said. “So they told her she had to have the baby, and then renew her passport and apply for an immigrant visa for her and the baby.”

Sires wrote a letter to the United States embassy in Pakistan, something he described as a routine inquiry about the status of Rahami’s case.

Sires said he notified the FBI about the encounter after staffers in his office saw the announcement Monday that federal agents were looking for Rahami.

“They recognized the name, they said this guy has contacted our office,” Sires said. “I called the FBI myself. They said they would send someone to get the file.”

Much of Rahami's recent life, however, appeared to be centered near the home he shared with family members above the Elizabeth, N.J., chicken restaurant.

Online business records show that a relative of the suspect, Mohammad Rahami, 53, is the owner of First American Fried Chicken, located at 104 Elmora Ave., in Elizabeth, N.J. Phone calls to the business Monday morning went to a voice mail machine.

New Jersey business records show that First American Fried Chicken was incorporated in 2003 by a woman named Molly Hamidullah. A woman who answered the phone Monday at what appeared to be Hamidullah’s most recent address, in Union, N.J., said Hamidullah no longer lived there.

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Rahami’s family sued the city of Elizabeth and several of its police officers and others in a 2011 federal court lawsuit after the city enacted an ordinance that required the restaurant to curtail its hours of operations.

The eatery was repeatedly given city summonses for allegedly violating an ordinance that required it and certain other establishments to close by 10 p.m.

“Despite their legal right to keep the restaurant open past 10 p.m.”, the city and the police officers “embarked on a course of conduct to harass, humiliate, intimidate (and) retaliate” against the restaurant owners, the lawsuit charged.

James Dean McDermott, operator of a nearby Elizabeth business, allegedly “complained to the police that plaintiffs’ business was 'open' and commented to plaintiffs that 'you are Muslims,'” that “Muslims make too much trouble in this country,” among other statements, the lawsuit charged.

McDermott denied having made any derogatory comments about the restaurant owners and asserted a counterclaim against the family “for damages based on their harassment and threats of physical harm to him,” the court records show.

McDermott declined to comment on the case Monday, said Bruce Bergen, his former attorney.

The Rahami family complaint accused the city of singling out the chicken eatery “for selective enforcement of an ordinance.” The family ultimately agreed to have the case stayed and administratively terminated in October 2012, court records show.

New Jersey court records also show that Harbor Terrace Apartments in Perth Amboy, N.J., filed a 2013 landlord-tenant civil action against Rahami in Middlesex County Court. The outcome of the case was not immediately available, and the company did not respond to a message.

Antonio Barritta won a $1,158 small claims judgment against Rahami in 2012, Middlesex County Court records also show. Barritta did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

A separate filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court shows that the suspect's father, Mohammad Rahami, filed for court protection in October 2005. He listed total assets of $9,900, including just $100 in a Commerce Bank account in Edison, N.J., and overall liabilities of $45,899, much of it credit card debt, in the Chapter 7 filing, the records show.

The elder Rahami identified his occupation as a cook in the filing, indicated he was separated from his wife and had eight children.

He was discharged from bankruptcy and the case was closed in March 2006, the records show.

The court cases are part of a background that authorities are actively reviewing in an attempt to foreclose the possibility of a wider network.

Between 2010 and 2012, Rahami attended Middlesex County College in Edison, N.J., where he studied criminal justice. College spokesman Patrick Madama said Rahami left the two-year school in good standing but without a diploma.

Madama said there was no record of any misconduct.

There is no evidence that Rahami was directed by a foreign terror group, a federal law enforcement official said. Yet investigators have been examining cellphone devices that were used as timers for some of the devices recovered in New Jersey and New York. The phones, said the official who is not authorized to comment publicly, could be helpful in tracing the suspect's movements immediately before the placement of the devices.

Although Rahami did not appear to be the target of any previous FBI terror inquiry, the official said the suspect's name emerged as part of a domestic dispute involving his father. The matter was closed without any action.

Contributing: Jeff Pillets, USA Today Network; Johnson reported from Washington