FBI Confirms New Orleans Attacker Was Acting Alone, 'Inspired By Islamic State'
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas had posted five videos on his Facebook account hours before the attack in New Orleans.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday, said that the Army veteran who drove into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans had acted alone reversing its previous statement. The officials revealed that Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas had posted five videos on his Facebook account hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the Islamic State militant group and hinted at the violence he was planning to carry out in the renowned French Quarter district.
“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” said Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, calling Jabbar “100% inspired” by the Islamic State, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The 42-year-old Texas man carried out his attack along Bourbon Street and killed 14 revellers, including, an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a single mother, a father of two and a former Princeton University football star. Jabbar was fatally shot during a firefight with police after he drove his speeding truck around a barricade and into a crowd. About 30 people were injured.
The attack marked the deadliest IS-inspired assault on US soil in years, highlighting federal officials' warnings about a resurgent international terrorism threat. Raia said that there wasn’t any indication that the New Orleans attack and the explosion Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck filled with explosives outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel were in any way connected.
The FBI is still hunting for clues about Jabbar but said it was confident he was not aided by anyone else in the attack. In an attempt to cause more carnage, crude bombs were placed around the neighbourhood. Authorities discovered two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in coolers several blocks apart but they were rendered safe at the scene the other devices were found to be non-functional.
Surveillance video showed people standing near one of the coolers but concluded that they were not connected “in any way” with the attack, though investigators still want to speak with them as witnesses, Raia said.
Investigators are trying to understand Jabbar’s path to radicalisation which they said led him to rent a pick-up truck in Houston on December 30 which he drove to New Orleans the following night. Jabbar had an Islamic State flag on his truck.
In one of the videos, he said he originally planned to harm his family and friends but “was concerned that news headlines would not focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers,” Raia said. He also joined the IS before last summer also provided with a last will and testament, FBI said according to AP.
Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.
A US government official told AP, that Jabbar had travelled to Egypt in 2023, and he stayed in Cario for a week, he returned to the US and visited Toronto for three days. It is not clear what he did during those days.
On Thursday, New Orleans rolled back into normalcy. The authorities finished with the crime scene and cleaned up the bodies. Bourbon Street — famous worldwide for music, open-air drinking and festive vibes — reopened for business by early afternoon.
Trending News
Top Headlines
