Two Pennsylvania teenagers drove into New York City on Saturday with homemade bombs, joined a counterprotest outside Gracie Mansion, and hurled improvised explosive devices at a crowd. Emir Balat pledged his allegiance to ISIS in writing while he was in custody. Ibrahim Kayumi blurted out, as he was being arrested, that "ISIS" was the reason for his conduct. Balat also told investigators that he hoped to carry out an attack even bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing, which he noted resulted in "only three deaths."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's first instinct was to condemn white supremacy.
According to Breitbart News, Mamdani took to X on Sunday, labeling protest organizer Jake Lang a "white supremacist" whose event was "rooted in bigotry and racism." After condemning bigotry, he addressed the attack, referring to the use of explosives as "even more disturbing" than the protests themselves. He called out the attempt to use an explosive device as "criminal" and "reprehensible," but did not reference police reports that the devices were linked to counter-protesters, and did not name the individuals arrested in connection with the matter.
The sequence matters. The mayor of the largest city in America learned that two men had just tried to bomb a crowd while invoking ISIS, and he spent his first public statement on the man they came to oppose.
Police determined the devices were real and potentially lethal, containing explosive material including TATP, a volatile substance used in terrorist attacks. The FBI said the devices contained explosive materials and fragmentation that could have killed and maimed numerous people. TATP is an "enormously volatile" substance used by groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and in attacks like the 7/7 London bombings.
Tisch said Balat and Kayumi arrived in New York City one hour before they were arrested, crossing the George Washington Bridge at 11:36 a.m. Balat retrieved a second device from Kayumi, lit it, and ran with it before dropping it on the west side of East End Avenue between East 86th and East 87th streets. The NYPD later identified a suspicious device in a vehicle on East End Avenue, prompting an evacuation of nearby buildings.
The FBI conducted a court-authorized search of a storage facility in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. FBI bomb technicians in tactical gear searched for evidence, and investigators conducted a controlled detonation of explosive materials they found at the site.
These were not bored teenagers with fireworks. This was a planned ISIS-inspired attack on American soil, minutes from where the mayor of New York City lives.
Mamdani's Sunday post became a document of priorities. He named Jake Lang. He did not name Emir Balat or Ibrahim Kayumi. He called the right-wing protest an "affront to our city's values." He called the bombing attempt "reprehensible." He spent more words on the protest that produced no casualties than on the attack that nearly produced many.
Mamdani thanked the NYPD for their bravery, but did not comment on the suspects or the alleged motivations for the attack. The ISIS connection was not mentioned. The names of the men in handcuffs were not mentioned. The word "terrorism" was not used.
By Monday, under pressure, he updated his position. His office released a statement acknowledging the ISIS dimension directly:
Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi have been charged with committing a heinous act of terrorism and proclaiming their allegiance to ISIS. They should be held fully accountable for their actions.
Credit where it's due: he said the right words eventually. But eventually is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The arc from Sunday's statement to Monday's only bends toward clarity after backlash forced it there.
At Monday's press conference, Mamdani still described the initial protest as "a vile protest rooted in white supremacy entitled 'Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.'" Even with two ISIS-pledged bombers in federal custody, the mayor of New York City kept returning to the same rhetorical well.
Law enforcement was not equivocal. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters: "This was not random violence. This was a planned attack motivated by extremist ideology and inspired by a violent foreign terrorist organization."
On Monday, the Southern District of New York charged Balat and Kayumi with five counts, including attempted support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, use of a weapon of mass destruction, and transportation of explosive material.
James Barnacle, who runs the FBI's New York office, said at a news conference that "Balat and Kayumi sought to incite fear and mass suffering through this alleged attempted terror attack in the backyard of an elected city official."
The federal government called it what it was. New York's mayor called it "disturbing" and pivoted to Islamophobia.
Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and he has been open about the role his faith plays in how he governs. Last month, at an Interfaith Breakfast, he announced a sanctuary executive order blocking ICE agents from entering city property without a judicial warrant, including schools, shelters, and hospitals, while invoking the Islamic concept of hijrah and declaring that "the story of the Prophet Muhammad was a stranger too, who fled Mecca and was welcomed in Medina."
None of that is disqualifying on its own. A mayor can hold personal faith and govern a diverse city. But a pattern emerges when the same mayor who weaponizes the language of bigotry against a 20-person sidewalk protest goes conspicuously soft in the hours after a crowd nearly gets bombed by two men shouting their ISIS affiliation at arresting officers.
The framework he applies is selective. White supremacy earns immediate, named condemnation. Radical Islamic terrorism earns a generic "violence is reprehensible" and a thank-you to the NYPD, followed by silence on the perpetrators until public pressure demands more.
That is not a neutral framework. It is a political one.
Balat left the U.S. and traveled to Istanbul from May to August 2025, then returned from Turkey in January of this year. Kayumi traveled to Istanbul in July and August 2024 and to Saudi Arabia in late March of that year. Investigators are reviewing both men's overseas travel as part of the broader terrorism probe.
After being arrested, Balat was caught on officers' body-worn cameras saying, "This isn't a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet." He added: "If I didn't do it, someone else will come and do it."
These are not the words of confused teenagers who stumbled into something they didn't understand. His own defense attorney's argument, that Balat "doesn't have any idea what he's doing," ran directly against what his client said in the back of the police car.
ISIS, al Qaeda, and pro-Iranian groups have intensified recruiting and calls for violence online since the war with Iran started just over a week ago, law enforcement sources said. The threat environment is real, documented, and escalating.
New York's mayor spent his first public moment after a near-mass casualty ISIS attack telling the city about Jake Lang. That choice reveals more about his politics than any speech or executive order could.
Law enforcement ran toward the devices. The mayor ran toward a different narrative. Only one of those choices protected New Yorkers.
