Conservative activist Jake Lang, who was leading an anti-Muslim protest outside the official residence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday, claimed to have survived an “assassination attempt” by “two Muslim men” as explosive devices were hurled during the agitation and a counter-protest.
Amid the chaos, authorities arrested six people connected to the unrest, including two accused of handling and igniting improvised explosives near Mamdani’s residence.
What did Jake Lang say?
In a post on
Sharing the video, the conservative activist wrote, “I just survived an assassination attempt by these two Muslim men. The homemade bomb they threw landed 3 feet in front of me.”
“The detonator failed to ignite, because God is on the throne of my life,” Lang said further, adding, “We will never surrender to Islam.”
Here’s what we know so far about the incident:
– The anti-Muslim stir led by Lang began at around 11 am ET near East End Avenue and East 87th Street, close to Mamdani’s residence.
– Bloomberg reported that Lang’s anti-Muslim protest drew around 20 agitators, while another counter-protest held simultaneously saw around 125 people take part.
– Shortly before noon, tensions between the two groups escalated when a protester affiliated with Lang’s protesters used pepper spray against the counter-protesters and was later arrested, police said.
– Subsequently, an 18-year-old man lit and threw an ignited device toward the protest area, landing in a crosswalk near officers, which Lang and his supporters described as a “nail bomb” in a video shared on X.
– The man then allegedly obtained a second device from a 19-year-old, lit it and dropped it along East End Avenue, police said.
– Both suspects were subsequently apprehended by the police, along with four others.
– The duo responsible for handling the improvised explosives were identified as 18-year-old Amir Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Nick, though cops said that the ID on Nick was “tentative”.
– New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters that she didn’t believe that Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji were at home when the incident took place.
– The investigation into the incident is being carried out by the NYPD and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
– After the chaos died down, Joe Calvello, a spokesperson for Mamdani labeled the Lang-led protest “despicable and Islamophobic”, describing the conservative activist as a “vile white supremacist”.
