The NYPD discovered bomb-making paraphernalia inside a car parked on the Upper East Side Sunday — a day after a pair of ISIS-inspired extremists hurled highly dangerous explosives during a protest near Gracie Mansion, according to authorities and sources.
The “suspicious device” was found in a Hyundai on East End Avenue between 81st Street and 82nd Street in connection with an ongoing investigation into the highly volatile explosive devices thrown at a rowdy demonstration outside the mayor’s residence on Saturday, according to the NYPD and sources.
Officers closed off the street and evacuated residences and businesses surrounding the vehicle, believed to be linked to one of the suspects, before bomb squad members safely removed the device for further testing.
“NYPD officers have frozen the area around the vehicle and are conducting limited evacuations of buildings in the vicinity while the Bomb Squad assesses and removes the device,” the NYPD wrote on X on Sunday afternoon.
The bomb squad successfully removed the explosive-making materials and residents were allowed to return to their homes, the department wrote in an update about two hours later.
They found an energy drink with tape wrapped around it and some kind of highly volatile material inside, sources said.
The device is similar to the detonator used in the homemade IEDs allegedly thrown by self-radicalized ISIS terrorists Ibraham Kayumi, 19, and Emir Balat, 18, in a clash with agitators backing right-wing activist Jake Lang, sources added.
The botched explosive from Saturday’s protest consisted of sports drink bottles filled with triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, a substance favored by terrorists and known as “Mother of Satan” — which is so volatile that it typically doesn’t require a fuse to go off, according to sources.
The explosives fortunately failed to detonate during the clash between right-wing, Islamophobic demonstrators and pro-Muslim counter-protesters.
It is not immediately clear whether the paraphernalia found on Sunday has been positively identified as belonging to Kayumi or Balat.
An investigation remains ongoing, authorities said.
