{"id":158945,"date":"2026-03-10T08:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/158945\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T08:52:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:52:06","slug":"fbi-hunts-for-clues-after-2-men-charged-with-lighting-bombs-at-nyc-protest-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/158945\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI hunts for clues after 2 men charged with lighting bombs at NYC protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Investigators are trying to learn more about two Pennsylvania men accused of bringing homemade bombs to a protest outside the home of New York City\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, told authorities after their arrests that they were inspired by the Islamic State group, law enforcement officials said, but much remains undisclosed about their motives and how much they planned. <\/p>\n

The FBI said Monday that it had conducted multiple searches in connection with the investigation, including an examination of a Pennsylvania storage unit<\/a>. Tests were being performed on some of the devices recovered at the scene.<\/p>\n

Balat\u2019s lawyer, meanwhile, portrayed him as a confused teenager who didn\u2019t know what he was doing.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors, police and FBI officials say Balat and Kayumi, who lived in Philadelphia\u2019s suburbs, drove to New York City on Saturday and joined a throng of counter protesters at a small, anti-Muslim rally organized by the far-right Christian nationalist Jake Lang.<\/p>\n

Journalists photographed Balat hurling a device, smoking with a lit fuse, that was later found to contain the explosive TATP. The object, which also contained nuts and bolts, extinguished itself without harming anyone. <\/p>\n

Balat then dropped a second object near some police officers and tried to run, but was tackled and arrested, according to a court complaint.<\/p>\n

Balat and Kayumi were being held without bail after a court appearance Monday on charges that include attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and using a weapon of mass destruction.<\/p>\n

Balat\u2019s lawyer, Mehdi Essmidi, said outside court that his client, a high school senior, had \u201ccomplicated stuff going on\u201d in his personal life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe he\u2019s 18 and he doesn\u2019t have any idea what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Essmidi said. He added that he didn\u2019t believe Balat and Kayumi had known each other long.<\/p>\n

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said there were no indications Monday that the attack was connected to the ongoing war in Iran<\/a>. <\/p>\n

After Balat was arrested, police officers asked him whether he was aiming to accomplish something akin to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, even bigger,\u201d Balat replied, according to a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Investigators are trying to learn more about two Pennsylvania men accused of bringing homemade bombs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[65556,597,7080,417,8041,44547,9,56,63,65,64,7703,421],"class_list":{"0":"post-158945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-65556","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-bombings","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-law-enforcement","13":"tag-new-orleans-truck-attack","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-nyc-headlines","18":"tag-nyc-news","19":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","20":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}