Suspected terrorist defiantly flashes ISIS salute after he’s busted for tossing explosive device near Gracie Mansion
Suspected terrorist defiantly flashes ISIS salute after he’s busted for tossing explosive device near Gracie Mansion
One of the accused terrorists busted for lobbing explosive devices near Gracie Mansion flashed a sick salute honoring ISIS as he was led in shackles from a police precinct Monday.
Emir Balat, 18, was seen holding up his right index finger — a universal salute for the terror group — and grinning at the press while being led by a cop and an FBI agent.
Balat, wearing a black T-shirt and beige pants, made the gesture before one of the officers flanking him slapped down his hand.
ISIS fighters have often used the index finger gesture in their propaganda. The gesture is also used by many Muslims to demonstrate their commitment to monotheism.
Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, both from Pennsylvania, were set to face federal charges on Monday.
The pair was arrested Saturday after allegedly trying to detonate a homemade “Mother of Satan” bomb during a protest outside New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Upper East Side residence.
Law enforcement sources told The Post that one of the two suspects used the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) after their police interview.
Balat, whose parents are reportedly from Turkey but who became naturalized citizens in 2017, grew up in a four-bed two-bath home in the leafy Pennsylvania suburb of Langhorne, worth an estimated $653,000, while his alleged sidekick lived in a $2.25 million six-bedroom home near the New Jersey border.
Here’s the latest on the bombs thrown outside Gracie Mansion
- 6 arrested after homemade explosive devices at Gracie Mansion protest send people running for cover
- Self-radicalized ISIS protesters used explosive called ‘Mother of Satan’ inside bombs thrown at Gracie Mansion protest: sources
- Devices hurled at Gracie Mansion protest determined to be highly dangerous IED capable of ‘serious injury or death’: NYPD
- FBI raids upscale homes of self-radicalized ISIS protesters accused of hurling bombs in NYC — including $2M mansion
Agents were seen raiding Balat’s home following his arrest, as a “terror investigation” was underway.
The two teenagers reportedly made pro-ISIS statements while in police custody, and admitted to watching Islamist terror propaganda videos, federal law enforcement sources told Fox News correspondent CB Cotton.
Balat is accused of lighting and dropping a “Mother of Satan” improvised homemade explosive near the police on Saturday at around 12:30 p.m.
The device, which consisted of a sports drink bottle filled with volatile explosive material TATP, set inside a glass jar surrounded by nuts and bolts, according to CBS News, could have been fatal if it had detonated.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed at a press conference on Monday that the incident was being treated as an attempted terror attack.












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