Two Bucks County men arrested for attempting to detonate homemade bombs at a protest outside Gracie Mansion in Manhattan over the weekend said they were inspired by ISIS, court documents show.

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, were charged with use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to support a foreign terrorist organization, and related crimes by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, according to documents unsealed Monday afternoon.

Balat, of Langhorne, threw an improvised explosive device and a smoking projectile toward a group of people who gathered Saturday afternoon for a demonstration planned by far-right provocateur Jake Lang called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City,” said New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Kayumi, of Newtown, helped Balat, she said, handing him a second explosive device that, like the first bomb, did not detonate, and no one was injured.

Federal prosecutors say that after their arrests, Balat and Kayumi made multiple references to the Islamic State, a trans-national Jihadist network that has claimed responsibility for a range of global terrorist attacks.

Balat wrote on a piece of paper that he “pledge[d] allegience [sic] to the Islamic State,” according to the charging document.

Balat told investigators he wanted to carry out an attack “even bigger” than the Boston Marathon bombing, which he noted had resulted in “only three deaths,” the document said.

After Balat was taken into custody, the document said, he told NYPD officers from the back of a police vehicle that “this isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet. ... We take action!”

Kayumi told police he was affiliated with ISIS, and told investigators he watched ISIS propaganda on his phone, the charging document said.

According to investigators, Kayumi also told them he did not feel comfortable holding the explosive devices earlier that day.

The complaint does not say whether Balat or Kayumi had direct contact with ISIS or whether either or both had been formally recruited by the group.

Reached by phone Monday, Balat’s lawyer, Mehdi Essmidi, said he was still assessing the charges against his client.

“At the moment, I am just trying to figure out what is going on,” he said. “There’s still a lot to figure out, and I think it’s going to be a while before I get the answers I need.”

Essmidi said Balat had only recently turned 18 and was “a child.” Asked whether Balat had any direct contact with ISIS, he said he had no indication of that.

Court documents did not list an attorney for Kayumi. Both men are being held in custody in New York without bail.

The investigation is ongoing, Tisch said at a news conference Monday afternoon to announce the charges. She said Balat and Kayumi had deliberately planned the attack, driving over the George Washington Bridge and into Manhattan less than an hour before igniting the devices.

They threw the bombs at 12:15 p.m, about 10 minutes after they arrived, she said. The FBI later tested the devices and found one of them contained TATP, a highly volatile explosive substance used in many terrorist attacks.

A NYPD police official speaking alongside Tisch said the department conducted controlled detonations of the devices that resulted in “a significant explosion” capable of causing “death and destruction.” The bomb squad examined the devices, just smaller than a football, and found they consisted of a jar wrapped in black tape, with nuts, bolts, screws, and a hobby fuse that could be lit, the commissioner said.

A notebook recovered from the vehicle the men drove to New York in contained notes about TATP and listed ingredients for the substance, officials said.

Tisch decried the men’s actions and noted that when questioned by investigators, they had been clear about their intentions. “Both defendants admitted that the acted on Saturday because of ISIS,” she said.

Investigators said the car the men drove had a New Jersey license plate and was registered to one of Balat’s family members.

According to the charging document, Kayumi’s mother filed a missing persons report for her son on Saturday, saying she had last seen her son around 10:30 a.m. that morning.

Efforts to reach the two men’s families were not successful.

On Sunday, the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies searched a home in Langhorne in connection with the incident, Middletown Township police said in a Facebook post.

On Saturday morning, as anti-Muslim protesters gathered outside Gracie Mansion — where Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, lives in the Upper East Side — wearing American flags and “Freedom” shirts, according to the New York Times, counterprotesters quickly joined in.

About 120 others gathered for a protest dubbed “Run the Nazis out of New York City,” Tisch said. The groups were shouting at each other, and as tension swelled, someone in Lang’s group sprayed counterprotesters with Mace, Tisch said.

Police said they later identified that person as Ian McGinnis, 21, of Philadelphia. He was taken into custody at the scene and charged with assault, harassment and related crimes. He has pleaded not guilty, court records show.

McGinnis is a founder of the conservative media website and podcast "Surge Philly." Photos and videos of Saturday’s event shared online appear to show McGinnis and co-host Frank Scales — who built the "Surge Philly" platform by filming himself interviewing and arguing with protesters — engaging with counterprotesters.

One photo captured by Getty Images appears to show McGinnis spraying Mace toward a group, with Scales at his side. Videos posted on social media appeared to show protesters yelling “Get out!” and running at Scales and McGinnis when he pepper-sprayed them.

Scales did not immediately respond to requests for comment. McGinnis could not be reached.

As the melee swelled following the release of pepper spray, a counterprotester later identified as Balat threw a fiery device toward Lang’s group, sending people running for cover, Tisch said.

Balat, she said, then ran down the block and got a second device from Kayumi. Balat lit that device, but dropped it as he ran toward East 87th Street, the commissioner said.

Both men were taken into custody at the scene.

Officials in Bucks County said Monday that one of the men was a Neshaminy High School student. They did not identify him.

Jason Bowman, the Neshaminy School District superintendent, said in a statement that the student is 18 years old and a resident of Middletown Township.

There is no active threat to the school or its students, he said.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, whose district includes Bucks County, said in a statement that he had been in contact with Bowman, and that a Neshaminy school resource officer would coordinate with FBI investigators moving forward.

Fitzpatrick said the two men had targeted protesters with explosive devices containing materials used in the “deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history.”

“That is not protest,” Fitzpatrick said. “That is not expression. It is criminal violence. It is terrorism.”

No explosions or injuries from the devices were reported. Tisch, the police commissioner, said the first device “struck a barrier and extinguished itself a few feet from police officers.”

The mayor and his wife were not home at the time of the protest. Mamdani, in a social media post Sunday, called Lang a white supremacist whose protest was “rooted in bigotry and racism,” but said that “what followed was even more disturbing.”

“The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are,” he said.

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(Inquirer staff writer Ryan Briggs contributed to this article.)

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