Emir Balat allegedly wanted to carry out attack bigger than Boston Bombing in New York, police say

Two young men accused of trying to detonate explosive devices during a protest outside the home of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday have been charged with attempting to support a foreign terrorist group and using a weapon of mass destruction, federal prosecutors announced Monday.

Officials said Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, travelled to New York from Pennsylvania and tried to detonate two devices near protesters gathered for an anti-Islam rally near Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence, where Mamdani lives with his wife, Rama Duwaji.

According to a complaint filed in New York federal court and unsealed Monday, local time, the suspects made multiple references to the Islamic State, or ISIS.

The devices contained an explosive material that has been used in multiple terrorist attacks over the last decade, officials and the complaint said. Balat said that he and Kayumi wanted to “carry out an attack bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing,” according to the complaint.

Mamdani and Duwaji were not home at the time of the protest, and the devices did not explode. No one was injured.

Balat and Kayumi were also charged with transportation of explosives, unlawful possession of destructive devices, and interstate transport and receipt of explosives, according to the complaint.

It was unclear whether Balat and Kayumi had retained attorneys as of Monday afternoon. Attempts to reach their family members were unsuccessful.

A third device and other materials were found Sunday inside a car associated with the men, officials said.

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday that testing on one of the explosives revealed it was made with materials that could have caused serious injury or death.

The devices were found after a clash between anti-Islam protesters, led by right-wing provocateur Jake Lang, and counterprotesters - an incident that underscores political tensions in New York and an increase in political violence nationwide.

Mamdani, who is Muslim, quickly became the focus of Islamophobic rhetoric when he was elected mayor of the nation’s biggest city in November. During the mayoral race, he faced questions and criticism over his religion from his political opponents and commentators.

On Monday, during his first public remarks about the incident, Mamdani called the anti-Muslim rally a “vile protest rooted in White supremacy” but said he would “not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen.”

While most counterprotesters were peaceful, he said, the two suspects tried to rouse the demonstrators to become more violent.

“New York City will never tolerate violence, whether from protests or counterprotests,” he said in a news conference Monday morning outside Gracie Mansion.

The protest on Saturday was planned more than a week in advance and spearheaded by Lang, who was charged with beating police officers with a baseball bat during the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and was later pardoned. Lang has planned similar rallies across the country, including in Minneapolis, where a recent demonstration grew violent.

In posts to promote his rally, Lang said supporters could stand up against the “Muslim takeover” of New York and “Stop NYC public Muslim prayer,” and he promised to bring “hundreds” of pig heads to the demonstration outside Gracie Mansion.

New York law enforcement agencies were aware of the protest and plans for a counterprotest, officials said in the Monday afternoon news conference where they announced charges. The city, Tisch said, has also been in a “heightened state of alert” since the United States and Israel began a war in Iran last month.

Mamdani and his team also knew about the protest ahead of time, the mayor said Monday. By the time the protest started, he and his wife were at the New York Sign Museum in Brooklyn.

Fewer than two dozen people gathered alongside Lang during the protest, according to police. About 125 people showed up to counterprotest, a demonstration they called “Run the Nazis out of NYC,” police said. Before noon, tensions between the two groups began to escalate.

Around 12:15 p.m., a Lang supporter pepper-sprayed a counterprotester, Tisch said. That person was arrested.

Twenty minutes later, Balat, the 18-year-old suspect, allegedly lit and threw a device toward the protest area. Witnesses saw smoke and flames while it was in the air, Tisch said.

The device landed in a crosswalk and extinguished itself. Balat then sprinted, grabbed a second device from Kayumi and dropped it as he ran again, according to police and the complaint.

Videos of the incident were shared online by people at the protest. The federal complaint includes two photos appearing to show Balat holding one of the homemade devices and raising his arm to throw it. It also includes a third photo allegedly showing the handoff of the second device between Balat and Kayumi, alongside other images depicting the contents of one of the explosives.

The day ended in six arrests related to the incident, Tisch said, including the person accused of using pepper spray and three others arrested on counts of disorderly conduct and obstructing traffic.

As officers swept the area, police said, they found the third device inside a vehicle and briefly evacuated residents in the surrounding area before they extracted it from the car. The devices have been sent to a federal lab for more testing.

Federal authorities searched the homes of both men in Pennsylvania, Tisch said. They were both arrested about one hour after they arrived in New York on Saturday.

As officers were placing Kayumi into a police vehicle after his arrest Saturday, someone in the crowd yelled to ask “why he had done this,” according to the complaint and officials’ recount of the exchange, which they said was also captured on body-camera footage.

He responded by referencing ISIS, officials said. Later, Kayumi told investigators that he had watched Islamic State propaganda on his phone, according to the complaint.

Neither man had a prior criminal record, Tisch said.