Detectives in the United States were investigating a string of apparent terrorist attacks across the country’s north-east yesterday.

New York police released a photo of Ahmad Khan Rahami, a US citizen of Afghan birth sought in connection with Saturday’s bomb attack in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, which injured 29 people.

The FBI later said that Mr Rahami was also being sought on suspicion of involvement in a bomb blast at a railway station in New Jersey which caused no casualties.

 In the seaside town of Elizabeth, one of five pipe bombs left in an abandoned backpack went off as a bomb squad robot tried to disarm them just after midnight. Meanwhile, the FBI was investigating a stabbing spree in the Minnesota town of St Cloud on Saturday night as a potential terrorist attack.

A Somali man dressed as a security guard injured nine people at a shopping centre before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer.