FBI searches Pennsylvania storage unit related to ‘ISIS-inspired terrorism’ outside NYC mayor’s home
The FBI said Monday evening that it was conducting a search of a storage unit in Pennsylvania as part of the ongoing investigation into an incident of “ISIS-inspired terrorism” near the residence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over the weekend.
The FBI said in an article on None of the devices exploded and no one was injured.
Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, and Emir Balat, 18, face federal charges in connection with the incident, including illegal possession and use of a “weapon of mass destruction,” transporting explosives and attempting to assist a “designated foreign terrorist organization,” according to a federal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The teens are both from Bucks County in southeastern Pennsylvania, with Balat residing in Langhorne and Kayumi in Newtown, according to authorities.
They will be detained pending a bail application. At a court hearing Monday, lawyers for Balat and Kayumi requested protective custody of their clients at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The complaint accuses Balat and Kayumi of making statements about the Islamic State terrorist group before and after their arrest. Body camera video from New York City police officers who arrested Kayumi shows him responding “ISIS” to someone in the crowd asking him why he did it, according to the complaint.
Prosecutors said the two men hoped to inflict more carnage than the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people and injured more than 260 others in 2013.
“This is a public terrorism trial, we’re in New York City, he’s 18 years old and he’s exposed to the general population of what we call a hellhole, and we want to keep him protected,” Mehdi Essmidi, Balat’s lawyer, told NBC News on Monday.
Kayumi’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Monday with police, Mamdani said he and his wife, Rama Duwaji, were at a Brooklyn museum when the explosives were thrown and condemned the incident.
Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, also blasted the initial event that took place outside his official residence, calling it “a vile protest rooted in white supremacy.”
The anti-Islam protest, titled “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City, Stop the Muslim Public Prayer of New York City,” was led by conservative provocateur Jake Lang, 30. The event attracted about two dozen protesters and more than 120 counterprotesters, according to police.
Lang declined NBC News’ request for an interview.
Lang, who was pardoned for charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, held a similar rally in Minneapolis in January. The anti-immigration protest came days after Renée Good was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent.
