Terror probe widens after NJ car found near mayor’s mansion

🚨Two teens are accused of throwing an improvised explosive device at a NYC protest

🚨Police later found a black Honda with NJ plates used by the suspects

🚨The incident is being investigated as 'an act of ISIS inspired terrorism'

A bombing incident near the New York City mayor's residence on Saturday has been tied to New Jersey.

Police say one of the suspects was driving a car with New Jersey license plates. Neither has been charged with a crime but officials expect them to face federal charges.

Police believe two counter-protesters from Bucks County threw an improvised explosive device during an anti-Islam demonstration near Gracie Mansion. Mayor Zohran Mamdani is the city's first Muslim mayor. Federal prosecutors have charged the two with attempting to aid the ISIS terrorist organization and with several explosives offenses.

A counter-protester, Emir Balat, an 18-year-old high school student from Middletown, Pennsylvania, threw a lit device that landed in a crosswalk a few feet from NYPD officers, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Saturday. After running away, he was handed a second device by Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, of Newtown, Pennsylvania, police said. Balat tried to light it but dropped it while trying to run away, officials said.

Police arrested both suspects. Tisch said the incident is being investigated as “an act of ISIS inspired terrorism.”

New Jersey connections probed

During a media briefing on Monday morning, Tisch said a vehicle, a black 2010 Honda with New Jersey plates, was found near Gracie Mansion on Sunday. A robot used to search found a third suspicious device and materials consistent with the other two devices inside the car. It tested negative for explosive materials.

Tisch did not disclose which suspect drove the vehicle or where in New Jersey it is registered.

The New Jersey Department of Homeland Security and the FBI's Newark office on Monday morning did not respond to New Jersey 101.5's request for more information about the investigation.

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'This could have caused serious injury or death'

Both devices, which were smaller than a football, were jars wrapped with black tape filled with nuts, bolts, screws and a hobby fuse which could be lit, according to Tisch. One has been confirmed as a live ordinance, while further analysis has to be done on the second device.

"The NYPD Bomb Squad has conducted a preliminary analysis of a device that was ignited and deployed at a protest yesterday and has determined that it is not a hoax device or a smoke bomb. It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death," Tisch said in a statement.

Federal prosecutors detail charges against suspects

According to the complaint in the case someone in the crowd yelled a question at Kayumi about why he did what he is accused of doing to which he responded, "ISIS."

After waiving his Miranda rights Kayumi told investigators  he was affiliated with ISIS, watched ISIS propaganda on his phone and was partly inspired to carry out his actions by ISIS.

Balat said that they wanted to carry out an attack "bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing," which noted caused only “three deaths.”

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