The NYC bombing suspects pledged allegiance to ISIS, authorities say. What does that actually mean?

By Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) — The 18-year-old from Pennsylvania had just been arrested for allegedly attempting to detonate two bombs at a New York City protest when he arrived to the NYPD precinct on March 7.

As laid out in a criminal complaint, Emir Balat waived his Miranda rights, took paper and pen, and wrote out a message: “I pledge my allegience (sic) to the Islamic State.”

Just days afterward, a 36-year-old man who had previously served nearly a decade in prison for attempting to aid ISIS opened fire at Old Dominion University in Virginia. He killed one person and wounded two before he was killed.

With those incidents, the men joined an infamous group of suspected terrorists across the world who have expressed loyalty to and carried out violence in the name of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

But why exactly do they “pledge allegiance” to a “state” that is no longer a state? And what spurs someone to not just attack innocent people, but to then make a statement of loyalty while doing so?

Experts on extremism and jihadist terrorism said this pledge of allegiance is an important aspect of these attacks for the individual terrorist, for the group and for the American legal system.

“In their self-conception, they see themselves as soldiers of Allah fighting on behalf of ISIS,” said Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst and author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” “They conceive of themselves as doing something fairly heroic, even though of course it’s kind of the opposite.”

A pledge of allegiance “gives meaning to something that is sort of essentially meaningless, which is attacking innocent strangers. It allows them to frame themselves as heroes when often they’re zeroes.”

‘They want to be a part of something’

In Islamic tradition, pledging allegiance to a leader is formally known as “bay’ah.” But in the case of many terrorist suspects, this pledge of allegiance to ISIS is as simple as saying or writing a few words.

For example, during the 2016 attack at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the attacker pledged his allegiance to ISIS in a call to 911. In the 2016 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, one of the two attackers posted a message on Facebook declaring allegiance to the former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

For the terrorist suspect, this pledge makes them part of a broader group and gives them a sense of meaning, experts said.

“As long as you pledge allegiance to the group and carry out actions that support the group, you are a soldier of the caliphate and a member of ISIS,” said Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.

That’s especially the case for terrorist suspects who became radicalized online by watching propaganda.

“For the individuals who are radicalized, there’s a sense of belonging to a group,” Vidino said. “You are part of ISIS. It doesn’t matter that you’ve never traveled outside of the US or never met anybody who’s in ISIS.”

Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, a nonprofit that works to prevent extremist violence, said this mentality applies to many types of violent actors.

“Very often they’re looking for recognition and association,” he said. “They want to be a part of something. Then (they) end up going on sites that cater to engagement with violence as a means of association. They find some solace in that.”

In the New York City bombing incident earlier this month, Balat’s associate Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, said his actions were partly inspired by ISIS and said he had watched the group’s propaganda on his phone, according to the complaint.

Balat and Kayumi, both US citizens, have been charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization; use of a weapon of mass destruction; transportation of explosive materials; unlawful possession of destructive devices; and interstate transportation and receipt of explosives. They are being held without bail and are scheduled to appear in court on April 8.

Bergen said the pledge of allegiance gives a broader meaning to base violent desires. For example, Omar Mateen, the Pulse nightclub shooter, had variously considered joining Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah before pledging allegiance to ISIS – three groups with sharply different views.

“These are men looking for one reason or another to carry out a violent act,” Bergen said. “By pledging themselves to ISIS, it sort of gives them permission in their own minds to carry out some ‘heroic,’ quote-unquote, action.”

For ISIS, allowing people to join the group simply by stating a pledge allows them to take credit for attacks they may not even know about. It’s a different recruitment strategy than Al-Qaeda, which was very selective in its membership, Vidino said.

“In a way it’s a phenomal investment from ISIS’ point of view,” he said.

Finally, the pledge of allegiance can be a key part of the US legal system. Federal law makes it illegal to “provide material support” to a designated foreign terrorist organization like ISIS.

Although making a political statement of support for the objectives of an organization like ISIS is likely to be constitutionally protected speech, the Supreme Court has said that speech can be criminalized if it supplies advice, training or assistance to a terrorist organization.

“If there’s an oath, that makes it easy for the prosecution,” Vidino said.

What ISIS is now

ISIS is a long way from its heyday of power but remains a relevant force on the global stage, primarily through online propaganda.

The group began as a splinter of Al-Qaeda two decades ago, and in 2013 and 2014 took over several large cities in Iraq and Syria. In June 2014, the group established a “caliphate,” and its leader al-Baghdadi declared himself the authority over all the world’s Muslims. ISIS carried out brutal beheadings of hostages, organized deadly terrorist attacks across the world and encouraged their international supporters to carry out attacks on their own.

But by 2019, ISIS had lost most of its territory to a US-led coalition, and al-Baghdadi was dead.

As ISIS’ power waned, terrorist attacks in the US in their name did, too. There were no fatal ISIS-inspired attacks on US soil from 2017 until New Year’s 2025, when a US Army veteran with an ISIS flag drove a truck through Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people.

In 2026, ISIS is a “shadow” of what it was a decade earlier, and is now closer to a guerilla state or insurgent group, Vidino explained. Still, it has a network of affiliates that carry out terrorist attacks, such as the ISIS-K affiliate operating in central Asia that attacked a Moscow concert hall in 2024. And it puts out propaganda and tries to radicalize people online, operating almost like a “brand,” Vidino said.

“It exists in people’s heads,” Bergen said.

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CNN’s Jeff Winter contributed to this report.