Terror suspects Ibrahim Kayumi and Emir Balat, who became the focus of worldwide attention this week after allegedly of hurling two homemade bombs at an anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion, had led relatively quiet lives in quaint, well-kept, Pennsylvania suburbs with their immigrant parents.
Kayumi, 19, lived with his parents in a $2.24 million six-bedroom home on Clymer St. near Daulton St. in a community of luxurious single family homes an hour from Philadelphia in Newtown, Pa., according to Zillow and police sources. He graduated from Council Rock North High School in Newtown in 2024, Gothamist reported.
Kayumi’s parents emigrated from Afghanistan and became United States citizens more than a decade ago, the New York Times reported. The suspect’s father, Khayer Kayumi, told the Times that he and his wife became worried about their son when he did not come home on Saturday.
“If he’s going to be five minutes late, he calls,” Khayer Kayumi said. He said the family had been scouring parking lots, looking for him and fearing the worst.
“Maybe he had killed himself,” he said. “We didn’t know what was going on.”
Kayumi’s mother filed a missing person report at some point Saturday, saying she last saw her son at their Pennsylvania home around 10:30 a.m., according to the criminal complaint.
FBI Evidence Response Team agents collect evidence while executing a search warrant at a home associated with an 18-year-old suspect in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 2026. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Balat, 18, lived with his parents about 13 miles away from Kayumi, in a four-bedroom home on Tina Drive near Frosty Hollow Rd. in Langhorne, Pa., according to police sources. The roughly 3,200 square foot home has an estimated value of $653,000, according to Zillow.
Balat’s father, Selahattin Balat, is a Turkish native who was granted asylum by the U.S. in 1998, became a legal permanent resident in 2010 and a citizen in 2017, according to the Times.
Balat, who turned 18 two months ago, was just three classes away from graduating from Neshaminy High School, in Langhorne, according to his attorney and a spokesperson for the school.
Balat had not attended in-person classes since enrolling in the district’s virtual program this past September, a note sent to parents Monday by the district’s superintendent said, according to AP.
Recent Neshaminy graduates and brothers Brandon and Gary Pozdnyakov told Gothamist they knew Balat as a kid who stayed to himself at school. The brothers said they communicated with Balat from about 2022 to 2024, about buying and selling sneakers for a business the duo ran at the time.
FBI Evidence Response Team agents collect evidence while executing a search warrant at a home associated with an 18-year-old suspect in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 2026. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The siblings said Balat, with help from others, created computer programs that could purchase large quantities of popular sneakers, “right for retail.” They would meet up with him to exchange the merchandise at a local Wawa, and Balat’s father was always with him, the Pozdnyakovs said.
“ It was literally always his dad dropping him off with shoes just to make sure everything was good,” Gary Pozdnyakov said, noting Balat’s father was more talkative than his son.
“Never seemed like he would do any harm, really, but always had that awkward kid in him,” Brandon Pozdnyakov said about Balat. The brothers said they lost touch with him in 2024.
Balat’s lawyer, Mehdi Essmidi, said his client had “complicated personal stuff going on,” in his personal life, AP reported.
“When I say there is a lot to figure out about this young man, I mean it,” Essmidi said after their arraignments, describing Balat’s family as “just good, hardworking, decent people who have no idea how this could be happening.”
Asked by the AP whether he believed Balat was a terrorist, Essmidi said: “I believe he’s 18 and he doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing.”
Essmidi said the two suspects and their families don’t know each other. Neither teen has any criminal history, the NYPD said.
FBI Evidence Response Team agents collect evidence while executing a search warrant at a home associated with an 18-year-old suspect in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 2026. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On Saturday morning, a license plate reader captured a car with New Jersey plates, registered to one of Balat’s relatives, crossing the George Washington Bridge heading into New York, less than an hour before the botched bombing, the feds said.
About 12:38 p.m. Balat threw a duct-tape-wrapped mason jar with a lit fuse, which was later determined to contain triacetone triperoxide, the hallmark explosive seen in bombings around the world, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. The device, which landed near Lang and a nearby reporter covering the protest, extinguished itself without harming anyone.
Kayumi handed Bayat a second device, but Bayat dropped it as he tried to run off, Tisch said.
Emir Balat (left) lights a homemade explosive device before throwing it towards police during a protest organized by far-right influencer Jake Lang against alleged “Islamification” in New York City, near Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Saturday, March 7, 2026. At right is Balat’s alleged partner in crime, Ibrahim Kayumi. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images)
The teens, who told authorities they were inspired by ISIS, were hit with a slew of charges Monday including use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted provision of material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. They were held without bail at their Manhattan Federal Court arraignments on Monday.
After his arrest, when law enforcement agents asked Balat if he had hoped ot accomplish something akin to the Boston Marathon bombing, he replied, “No, even bigger. It was only three deaths.” The teen also wrote on a piece of paper, a misspelled message that he “pledge allegience to the Islamic State.”
Kayumi meanwhile allegedly told investigators he was affiliated with ISIS and watched the terror group’s propaganda on his phone.
The FBI spent most of Monday night executing a search warrant inside the storage facility on S. Flowers Mill Road in Middletown Township, Pa., that was allegedly used by Ibraham Kayumi, 19, and Emir Balat, 18. (Google)
The FBI said that it had conducted multiple searches in connection with the investigation. The police department in Middletown Township, Pennsylvania, said Tuesday that the FBI conducted controlled detonations of explosive materials found at a Public Storage facility in Langhorne, near where Balat’s family lives, the AP reported Tuesday.