NY bombers yelling “Allahu akbar” narrowly avoid mass casualties; media looks the other way

NY bombers yelling “Allahu akbar” narrowly avoid mass casualties; media looks the other way. By National Review.

On Saturday, an internet troll named Jake Lang staged an anti-Muslim protest in front of Gracie Mansion — currently the residence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Both its title (“Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City”) and scheduled main event (a “pig roast”) made its nature as an attention-getting provocation clear enough. Lang expected angry counterprotesters and received them in due course.

What neither he nor any of the peaceful counterprotesters in attendance expected was for two young men — identified in reports as Emir Balat (age 18) and Ibrahim Kayumi (age 19) — to rush forward, shout “Allahu akbar,” and hurl improvised explosive devices into the crowd. The bombs, filled with bolts and screws, thankfully failed to detonate, and the two men were immediately apprehended by a fast-moving NYPD.

There is no doubt as to their motivations: Both men spoke freely and unrepentantly to police at the scene, proudly claiming inspiration from ISIS and stating they had intended their terrorist atrocity to be “bigger than Boston” — a reference to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that took the lives of three and injured scores more. Only the incompetence of the bombers prevented Saturday from turning into one of the darkest days in recent New York history.

 

 

Media lies to protect Islam:

Yet one would know none of this were one to go only by the headlines and framing devices the mainstream media have consistently used to explain this story to American readers …

It is impossible not to notice that all of these headlines — or countless others from similarly situated media outlets — are carefully crafted to avoid stating a politically inconvenient truth: Islamic terrorists came horrifyingly close to detonating bombs in a crowd of protesters.

Instead, our attention is directed toward the “hateful” nature of the rally, and readers are asked to fill in the missing narrative gaps with their own imaginations instead.

By Tuesday, the sugarcoating of the obvious — that homegrown, self-radicalized jihadis had targeted a protest and nearly murdered who-knows-how-many people outside Gracie Mansion — had moved well into parody. CNN led the morning with a widely mocked (and subsequently deleted) tweet framing the acts of Balat and Kayumi as a soft-focus human interest story: “Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather . . .” the piece begins. (You’ll never believe what happened next!)

Jenny Holland at Spiked:

The first reaction from the media was about as confused as a dementia patient lost in a busy garden centre. Screen grabs widely shared on X showed the New York Times headline: ‘Smoking jars of metal and fuses thrown at protest near mayor’s house’ – which it seems was later changed. The New York Times also ran a story with a subheading referring to the bomb as a ‘device that emitted smoke’. Local broadcaster NBC New York wrote: ‘Two people in custody after “suspicious devices” ignited outside NYC mayor’s official residence.’

A device that generates smoke… a container with metal and fuses? Was it a toaster? A lamp? The media left it open to interpretation. To paraphrase JK Rowling, I’m sure there used to be a word for these objects: Lombs? Jombs? Pombs?

TMZ called them ‘smoke bombs’. At least it used the B-word. These weren’t harmless pyrotechnics, however – they were homemade explosives filled with shrapnel and TATP, ‘a dangerous and highly volatile homemade explosive that has been used in IED attacks around the world’ (according to Time magazine). …

The mayor’s immediate reaction was to condemn the ‘vile protest rooted in white supremacy’.

New York governor Kathy Hochul blamed ‘both’ sides. Never mind that one side came armed only with a goat and a bad attitude, the other with multiple bombs and gave a statement to police that read in part: ‘I pledge allegiance to the Islamic State. Die in your rage you kufar.’ (sic) …

The lesson the media are teaching you:

Coming to New York to chuck bombs at non-Muslims is just part of life in an open, tolerant city. If anything, it should be celebrated!

However, coming to New York to loudly complain about Muslims wanting to bomb non-Muslims is an outrage of the highest order and will not be tolerated.

Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media: It’s Not a Phobia If They Keep Showing up With Bombs.

a phobia is an irrational fear. Given that Islam’s most ardent practitioners have tended towards murderous rampage for well over a thousand years, I would posit that any fear of them is quite rational indeed. In fact, not being a little leery of the “Allahu Akbar!” crowd is an affirmation of insanity.

The Religion of Peace has a real affinity for things that explode and make a lot of noise.

That juxtaposition isn’t going unnoticed by those of us who are constantly accused of being Islamophobes. Those who insist that the bad seeds in Islam are a mere fraction of the whole have a case that gets weaker every year. They’re also getting quieter.

Because they know that none of this is a phobia.