The FBI has launched a terrorism investigation after an IED was ignited at a New York Protest.

 

A suspect drops an IED while police react. CBS News/AFP/Getty.

The FBI has launched a terrorism investigation after an IED was ignited at a protest in New York City. CBS News. The incident occurred at Gracie Mansion, which is where Mayor Zohran Mamdani lives. An anti-Islam protest was occurring, along with a counterprotest when two men from Pennsylvania launched an attack. 18 year old Emir Balat ignited and threw a device and then retrieved a 2nd bomb from Ibrahim Kayumi, a 19 year old, and lit that device as well before dropping it. Neither device worked but the FBI says they were serious IED's, loaded with screws and nails, and had M-80 fireworks as the fuse and a large amount of TATP. It is unclear what the motivation of the attackers were but they did shoot "Allahu Akbar" and are being investigated for ties to ISIS. Both men had recently traveled to the Middle East. 

My Comment:

This is a somewhat confusing situation as it's not clear if these men were members of the counter protests and if they were targeting just the right wing original protest, or both groups. The CBS article describes the attackers as left wing, though I don't know if they should. These guys seem like regular old radical Muslims that happened to be aligned with the left on this particular protest. 

Regardless, everyone was lucky that the bombs didn't go off. From the picture above, the 2nd device absolutely could have killed or wounded the suspect (Emir Balat) along with the police officers that were trying to confront him. And the 1st device could have killed and wounded people on both sides of the protests. 

It was luck that both devices didn't blow up. The design appears to have been sound, but something didn't work. It could have been the fuse or the mixture of the explosives but in both cases the devices failed. If they hadn't we probably would have seen, at the very least, double digit casualties, and potential fatalities. 

I would not be surprised if these attackers had links to ISIS or other terrorist groups. They were traveling in the Middle East and could have made contacts there. Indeed, that may have been where they learned how to make their bombs. Generally speaking, you want someone who has experience to teach you how to build a bomb as trying to learn it yourself is a good way to blow yourself up, so I am guessing they had help while they were overseas, assuming they didn't have domestic help here to build them. If they didn't build them, than that is a real problem as a bombmaker is on the loose... 

I don't think this has too much to do with the war in Iran. It's possible that it was a secondary motivation, but this protest was the motivating factor. It was against Islam in general and New York City's Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani and had very little to do with Iran. Plus, my guess is that the attackers were Sunni, given the countries they traveled to and the fact that they might have ISIS ties. Iran's Islam is mostly Shia and I doubt there are going to be too many radical Sunni Muslims that would attack in defense of that regime. 

As for the protest and the counter protest, both of them were pretty cringe if I am honest. You can make an argument that Islam in general is incompatible with the west, but protesting against Mamdani himself because of it (instead of his politics) seems to cross the line to actual harassment. I don't like Mamdani either but it's because he's a leftist, not because he's a Muslim. Indeed, he's an example of a Muslim that doesn't seem that devout and should be left alone, not harassed. He can and should be protested for being a left wing nutjob, not a Muslim. 

The counterprotest was just as cringy. They called this an anti-Nazi rally, as if the only people in the world that would have a problem with Islam are Nazis. Plus, they were protesting in favor of the people throwing the bombs as well. In my view neither of these groups were covering themselves in glory here.

Either way, I do think we are seeing an uptick of Islamic violence again. The good news is that there doesn't seem to be a large terror group like ISIS funding and inspiring it. The bad news is that there are a lot of things that are stirring up the crazies. I don't think we are going to see a major ISIS attack or Iranian sleeper agents (if that was going to happen it would have happened last year), but there are lot of lone wolf attackers that might try something...