Two Bucks County men accused of bringing homemade bombs to a protest outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home wanted to “start terror,” an indictment said.
Emir Balat, 18, of Langhorne, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, of Newtown, were arrested on March 7 outside Gracie Mansion in New York. The pair allegedly drove up from Pennsylvania that morning and threw a homemade explosive device near the demonstration. They then went to another location and activated a second device near police officers and were arrested shortly after. Neither device exploded.
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Following the arrest of Balat and Kayumi, law enforcement located their vehicle and recovered a long coil of fuse, a notebook and a dashboard camera with three days of video recordings, according to an indictment released Tuesday night by the U.S. Southern District of New York court. The notebook contained pages of handwritten notes on how to construct and detonate the bombs and an alternate plan for a vehicle-based attack with protests, parades and “celebrations” listed as possible targets.
The video showed the two men en route from Pennsylvania on March 7, including audio of their plans to carry out an attack, how many people it could injure or kill, their intended targets and using social media to attempt to find one of those people.
During that time, Balat said he planned to target both the government and civilians. Kayumi allegedly said, “All I know is I want to start terror, bro.”
FBI agents later found a storage unit in Langhorne which Balat rented a few days before the event, the indictment said. Inside, officials found bomb-making supplies including triacetone triperoxide, a highly sensitive explosive which officials said has been used in multiple terrorism attacks over the past decade. On the center of the floor inside the unit, officers found a piece of paper which read, “All praise is due to Allah!!! Die in your rage ya kuffar!”
Kuffar means “non-believers” in Arabic and “die in your rage” is an Islamic State slogan. In the car recordings, Balat said that the pair would be conducting an act of “martyrdom” and described a note he had left behind, according to the indictment.
Following his arrest, Balat told officers, “This isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk bad about … our prophet. We take action! We take action!” while on the way to a New York Police Department precinct, prosecutors said.
Balat and Kayumi are each charged with conspiring to aid a terroristic organization, conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and transporting explosive materials, among other charges. They each face decades in prison, if convicted.