Federal and local investigators are probing possible international terror connections after two teenagers accused of throwing an improvised explosive device near New York City’s mayoral residence allegedly admitted to consuming ISIS propaganda and traveling to overseas hot spots linked to extremist networks.

Authorities say the suspects, 19-year-old Ibraham Kayumi and 18-year-old Emir Balat, were arrested after a homemade explosive device was thrown during a protest outside Gracie Mansion on Saturday. The device failed to detonate.

According to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation, the explosive contained triacetone triperoxide, or TATP — a highly unstable compound often referred to by counterterrorism officials as the “Mother of Satan.” The chemical has been used in several major terror attacks in Europe over the past two decades.

Officials say the teens had self-radicalized online and acknowledged watching ISIS videos. Investigators are also examining travel records that show the pair spent time abroad in recent years, including extended stays in Turkey.

Search warrants were executed Sunday at residences connected to the suspects in Pennsylvania as the NYPD and FBI continue to investigate potential terror links. Both suspects are expected to be transferred into federal custody.

The incident unfolded during a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” event led by the far right activist Jake Lang outside the Manhattan residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The sparsely attended event drew a far larger group of counterdemonstrators, including one person who tossed a smoking object containing nuts, bolts, screws and a “hobby fuse” into the crowd, police said.

In a social media post Sunday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the department’s bomb squad determined the object wasn’t a hoax device or smoke bomb, but an “improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death.”

The device extinguished itself steps from police officers, Tisch noted. The same person who threw it then received a second device from another counterprotester, which was dropped and did not appear to ignite, the commissioner said.

Charges against the two counterprotesters were still pending. Tisch said police were working with federal prosecutors and the FBI on the case.

“Violence at a protest is never acceptable,” Mamdani said in a statement Sunday. “The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”

Later Sunday, police said on social media that authorities investigating Saturday’s events had “identified a suspicious device in a vehicle on East End Avenue between 81st Street and 82nd Street.” Several streets were closed and “limited evacuations of buildings” were ordered as the bomb squad assessed and worked to remove the device, the post said.

A person associated with Lang’s protest was also arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, assault and unlawful possession of a noxious matter after allegedly macing counterprotesters, police said.

Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. He recently announced that he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.

Earlier this year, Lang organized a rally in Minneapolis in support of Trump’s immigration crackdown, drawing an angry crowd of counterprotesters that quickly chased him away.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)