Two men indicted in attempted NYC terror bombing could face life behind bars

MANHATTAN (CN) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday secured an indictment against two Pennsylvania teens accused of tossing an explosive device at a New York City protest in what the government claims was an act of Islamic State-inspired terror.

According to the eight-count indictment, Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, were heard discussing their plans on footage from their own car’s dashcam. Prosecutors say they drove from eastern Pennsylvania to Manhattan on March 7 — the morning of the attack.

“All I know is I want to start terror bro,” Kayumi said, per the indictment. “I want to petrify these people.”

Prosecutors say Balat theorized whether the bombing would stop airplane flights over New York City. He also estimated that the homemade explosives were “gonna kill about 8 to 16 people” or as many as 30 to 60 people if the area was crowded.

Balat and Kayumi were charged in a criminal complaint following their arrests last month. Now indicted by a federal grand jury, on charges including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the pair could face life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Balat and Kayumi targeted an anti-Muslim protest hosted by pardoned Jan. 6 rioter and white nationalist Jake Lang, who staged the modestly attended demonstration just steps away from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s residence at Gracie Mansion.

There, Balat was caught on camera lobbing a device that appeared to be a jar filled with shrapnel and explosives, handed to him by Kayumi. But the device didn’t detonate, and no one was injured.

Balat and Kayumi were arrested that day.

Since then, federal investigators claim they recovered a notebook with pages of plans, some of which listed ingredients and equipment for mixing explosives. Another page purportedly described an alternate plan for an attack by vehicle, including the “ideal vehicle" for such an attack, which would be “load bearing," “large in size,” “reasonably fast” and “heavy in weight.”

Prosecutors say the FBI also discovered a storage unit, rented by Balat, that contained explosive residue and bombmaking supplies.

“In the center of the floor inside the storage unit was a piece of paper containing the handwritten words, ‘All praise is due to Allah!!! [D]ie in your rage ya kuffar!’” the government claims in the indictment.

The dashcam audio also captured them discussing potential targets for the attack, including a person referred to as “Individual-1” in the indictment, prosecutors say. It’s not immediately clear whether that person is Lang.

“Just can’t wait for that bomb to go off and his freaking head, his body to get split in half bro, dead,” Balat said, according to the indictment.

“He hasn’t posted anything yet,” Kayumi reportedly replied. “Bro, this is so cool.”

Both acknowledged in that conversation that they were also targeting “the government” and “civilians also,” prosecutors say.

Following their arrests, Balat and Kayumi both supposedly made statements invoking the Islamic State.

Prosecutors claim Balat wrote the following on a piece of paper at the police station: “All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds! I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State.” They also say he said he wanted to carry out an “even bigger” attack than the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

“It was only three deaths,” Balat said, according to prosecutors.

Kayumi also waived his Miranda rights at the police station and told officers that he watched Islamic State group videos on his phone, the government claims.

“Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi planned this attack, transported explosive devices, and came to New York City intending to kill innocent people, as alleged in the indictment,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement Tuesday. “What they allegedly set in motion was an ISIS-inspired act of terrorism with the potential for mass casualties. It was stopped because of the quick-thinking, decisive actions of the men and women of the NYPD, who moved toward the threat and took these individuals into custody before more lives were put at risk.”

The attack was met with swift condemnation from New York officials in its immediate aftermath, as was the Islamophobic protest it purportedly targeted.

Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, said last month that Lang’s protest was “rooted in bigotry and racism” adding that “what followed was even more disturbing.”

“Violence at a protest is never acceptable,” the mayor said. “The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”

Lang has become an infamous figure online thanks, in part, to demonstrations like the one on March 7. Just a week prior, he drove a U-haul truck to a vigil for slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shouted Islamophobic comments and humped a live goat. He was also spotted earlier this year throwing up a Hitler salute outside of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.

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