Imbrahim Kayumi and Emir Balat traveled from Pennsylvania to New York to attend a counter-protest against a conservative group protesting the Islamification of New York City.
The family of alleged ISIS-inspired Ibrahim Kayumi, one of two Islamist suspects in the IED throwing incident at a counter-protest on New York’s Upper East Side on Saturday, owns a $2.25 million home in Newtown, PA. Kayumi and Emir Balat traveled from Pennsylvania to New York to attend a counter-protest against a conservative group protesting the Islamification of New York City.
Kayumi’s parents, owners of a convenience store, are immigrants from Afghanistan who came to the United States decades ago and became citizens between 2005-2009. Ibrahim, 19, is an American citizen. Balat’s family is from Turkey and became naturalized citizens in 2017. His parents live in Langhorne, PA in a $653,000 house, per the NY Post. Both homes have been raided by the FBI.
Their family home is 5,800 square feet, with six bedrooms and five bathrooms. The homemade bombs used on Saturday were filled with nails and screws.
NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed in a press conference on Monday that the IEDs “were not hoax devices, nor smoke bombs. They were improvised explosive devices that could have caused injury or death.” Investigators found that an “energetic substance” was used, which was triacetone triperoxide, known as TATP.
Tisch said that the incident is being investigated as ISIS-inspired terrorism. Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Monday that the Department of Justice had indicted Balat and Kayumi as well. “We have indicted the two alleged ISIS-inspired terrorists who attempted to bomb a protest in New York City. We will not allow ISIS’s poisonous, anti-American ideology to threaten this nation. Our law enforcement officers will remain vigilant,” she said.
