Federal prosecutors allege<\/a> that Balat, 18, and Kayumi, 19, drove to Manhattan from Pennsylvania the morning of March 7, parking a few blocks away from Gracie Mansion before slipping into a crowd that included participants in an anti-Islam demonstration and a group of counterprotesters. The pair was arrested after Balat threw two jars packed with explosive materials<\/a> at protesters and law enforcement, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n Neither of the devices detonated, and no one was injured. Balat and Kayumi are being detained on several federal charges, including attempting to provide support to the Islamic State, after prosecutors said the pair made statements about the terrorist group.<\/p>\n Body-camera video from the New York City officers who arrested Kayumi shows him responding \u201cISIS\u201d to someone in the crowd asking why he had done it, according to a federal complaint.<\/p>\n After waiving his Miranda rights, prosecutors said, Balat pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State and told authorities that he hoped to inflict more carnage than the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which left three dead and more than 260 others injured.<\/p>\n Lawyers for Balat and Kayumi did not immediately return requests for comment. Balat\u2019s attorney, Mehdi Essmidi, told NBC News on Monday that Balat has \u201ccomplicated stuff going on\u201d and suggested that his client did not know Kayumi prior to Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re strangers to each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Classmates recall a quiet, independent student<\/p>\n While authorities have not detailed how the teenagers knew each other, the two grew up roughly 4 miles apart in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n Kayumi lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania, on a street lined with 4,000-square-foot brick homes, and manicured lawns. His parents emigrated from Afghanistan and became U.S. citizens in 2004 and 2009, according to CBS News<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Thursday, no one answered the door, though a Mercedes sat in the driveway. Neighbors a few houses away told NBC News they didn\u2019t know Kayumi or his family well and said they mostly kept to themselves.<\/p>\n Kayumi enrolled part time at nearby Bucks County Community College in September 2024, according to a college spokesperson.<\/p>\n Earlier that year, he had graduated from Council Rock High School North, which has a football field and track, roughly a dozen newly paved tennis courts and a student parking lot packed with luxury cars. Students said the area is not known for the violence prosecutors now allege.<\/p>\n \u201cThe high school and the town \u2014 people are pretty affluent,\u201d said former classmate Connor McCormick. \u201cThere\u2019s not really a whole lot of controversy at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The high school said in a statement that \u201cthere is no evidence that he has posed a threat to any Council Rock schools\u201d and encouraged concerned students to consult with their school counselors.<\/p>\n Another former classmate, Matt \u2014 who asked that his last name not be published due to fears of retaliation \u2014 said he and Kayumi were in smaller classes for children with learning disabilities.<\/p>\n Matt said that although he and Kayumi saw each other a lot, their conversations were typically brief and one-sided.<\/p>\n \u201cHe definitely was very quiet,\u201d Matt said. \u201cHe would not talk unless you tried to talk to him, you know what I mean? Like, he would not say a word.\u201d<\/p>\n Matt said that while Kayumi did not get bullied regularly, he was sometimes a target.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t really that violent, but if someone would say something to him, like disrespecting him or something, he wasn\u2019t afraid to say something back,\u201d Matt said.<\/p>\n Matt and Lombardi recalled that Kayumi was involved in at least one physical altercation at school. The two former classmates did not witness the fight and could not recall who else was involved or who instigated it. They said they remember the altercation because physical violence at their high school was \u201cvery uncommon.\u201d A representative for the school declined to comment on Kayumi\u2019s student records.<\/p>\n Lombardi, 19, said he used to sit next to Kayumi on the bus to and from school nearly every day during their sophomore year. He described Kayumi as \u201cindependent\u201d but not someone who shied away from conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t have any telling signs if we\u2019re comparing it to what just happened,\u201d Lombardi said. \u201cHe would not in any aspect whatsoever have been my first guess.\u201d<\/p>\n Lombardi said that although they spoke often during their sophomore year, Kayumi was not on his list of people to say goodbye to at the end of high school.<\/p>\n It is not immediately clear what Kayumi has been doing since leaving high school and starting community college. A college spokesperson said Kayumi withdrew from the school by March 9.<\/p>\n Kayumi\u2019s mother filed a missing person report for her son on March 7, saying she last saw her son at around 10:30 a.m. \u2014 two hours before his arrest, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he\u2019s going to be five minutes late, he calls,\u201d Kayumi\u2019s father told The New York Times<\/a> in an interview.<\/p>\n Teens allegedly drove to New York with explosive materials<\/p>\n Balat grew up 4 miles south of Kayumi on a similarly tree-lined street in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n His father, Selahattin Balat, immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey and became a citizen in 2017, according to a lawsuit he filed against the Department of Homeland Security over his citizenship application in 2015.<\/p>\n On Thursday, a man who identified himself as Balat\u2019s father answered the front door of the family\u2019s palatial home and declined to comment.<\/p>\n Balat is a senior at Neshaminy High School in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, according to a school spokesperson. The spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that Balat has been finishing his senior year remotely since September.<\/p>\n When asked for comment on last week\u2019s incident, the Neshaminy School District shared two letters from the district\u2019s superintendent to parents and staff, including one that said there was no information indicating concerns about Balat related to the school.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/a> and The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a> reported that Balat had been selling designer sneakers at a markup, sometimes for hundreds of dollars, out of a Wawa parking lot since he was 13 years old. He was also selling products on Facebook Marketplace as recently as 19 days before the incident in New York.<\/p>\n One of Balat\u2019s neighbors, who asked that NBC News not publish her name due to fears of retaliation, described the family as \u201cloving,\u201d \u201copen,\u201d \u201cwelcoming\u201d and \u201ckindhearted.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she didn\u2019t speak with Balat much over the last few years, but that he seemed like a \u201ctypical kid.\u201d Balat shoveled her driveway during a snowstorm a few years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me because this is the world we\u2019re in right now,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it does surprise me that it\u2019s right here.\u201d<\/p>\n On March 2, Balat purchased a fireworks fuse from Phantom Fireworks in Langhorne. Surveillance video shared with NBC News shows him arriving at the company\u2019s Penndel location at around 12:15 p.m., registering his identification with an employee \u2014 a step the company requires of all customers \u2014 and buying a single 20-foot roll of green safety fuse with cash.<\/p>\n Phantom Fireworks Executive Vice President Alan Zoldan said the company searched its records for the suspects\u2019 names after the attempted bombing and found a match for Balat, which led employees to the roughly 10-minute store visit captured on video. Zoldan also showed NBC News a copy of a subpoena he said federal prosecutors sent to the company.<\/p>\n Five days later, prosecutors say, Kayumi and Balat drove from Pennsylvania to New York City in a black Honda registered to one of Balat\u2019s family members, crossing the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan at around 11:36 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n At about 12:15 p.m. ET, Balat threw an explosive device toward the area where protesters gathered at an anti-Islam rally outside the mayor\u2019s official residence on the Upper East Side, according to officials. The rally was led by conservative provocateur Jake Lang and attracted fewer than two dozen protesters and more than 120 counterprotesters, according to authorities.<\/p>\n Shortly afterward, Kayumi handed off a second explosive device to Balat, who dropped the device near police officers before the pair was arrested, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n After waiving his Miranda rights, the complaint says, Kayumi said he \u201cwas affiliated with ISIS; watched ISIS propaganda on his phone; and was partly inspired to carry out his actions that day by ISIS.\u201d<\/p>\n Investigators recovered a notebook from the car Balat and Kayumi drove, which contained handwritten notes that reference \u201cmaterials that could be used to build explosive devices,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n![\"Person](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/260307-smoke-bomb-ch-1407-6f240e.jpg\")
Emir Balat flees after throwing a homemade explosive device during the March 7 protestCharly Triballeau \/ AFP – Getty Images<\/p>\n