Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed that three improvised explosive devices, one planted in a vehicle on Sunday, were discovered after an attempted attack near Gracie Mansion in New York—thankfully without injury. She attributed the incident to Islamic State inspiration, a reminder that Manhattan garners international attention even when would-be attackers fail to check the mayoral calendar or basic competence at bomb-making.
New York City in brief
Top five stories in the five boroughs today
After a protest outside Gracie Mansion against “Islamification” devolved into a flurry of homemade bombs—thankfully duds—Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor, condemned bigotry but pointedly sidestepped denouncing two alleged ISIS-inspired counter-protesters arrested with TATP-based devices. NYPD’s Jessica Tisch confirmed the threat was real, but our statements, unlike the explosives, seem rather more diffused.
After two self-radicalised teenagers lobbed homemade TATP explosives—mercifully inert—during a protest near Gracie Mansion, the NYPD found bomb-making materials in a Hyundai parked on Manhattan’s East End Avenue. The alleged would-be bombers, Ibraham Kayumi and Emir Balat, remain under scrutiny as police piece together who owned the taped-up energy drink and why so much “Mother of Satan” keeps showing up in New York politics.
New York’s Gracie Mansion saw more fireworks than usual after an improvised explosive device—“football-sized” and packed with shrapnel—was tossed during a weekend protest by supporters of far-right figure Jake Lang and met by 125 counterprotesters. Police arrested two young men linked to the explosive, and the FBI is now poking around. Fortunately, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was out—along with his luck, it seems, for a quiet Saturday.
The FBI raided the plush Pennsylvania homes of Ibraham Kayumi and Emir Balat after they allegedly lobbed homemade bombs—mercifully duds—during a fracas outside Gracie Mansion between rival protesters. With parents hailing from Afghanistan and Turkey, the pair’s taste in real estate outstripped their bomb-making skills. Local critics grumble that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s reluctance to call it terrorism suggests a city still finessing its definitions.