A homemade bomb thrown near anti-Islam protesters outside the New York mayor’s house was a device capable of “causing serious injury or death”, police said on Sunday.
Two suspicious devices were thrown by a man identified by police as Emir Balat near Saturday’s protest led by a far-right lobbyist against public Muslim prayers.
An Agence France-Presse reporter at the scene heard Balat shout “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) during the incident, which is being investigated by counter-terrorism detectives.
“The NYPD Bomb Squad has conducted a preliminary investigation of the device that was detonated and deployed at the protest yesterday and determined that it was not a hoax device or a smoke bomb. It was, in fact, an improvised explosive device (IED),” the New York Police Department (NYPD) said in a statement on Sunday.
Police said on Saturday that the devices were cylinders wrapped in tape and contained nuts, bolts and screws – typical components of an IED.
Two men were arrested after Saturday’s incident: Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, who reportedly produced the device that was fired by Balat, who left it near a police line.
