The Military veteran who drove a pickup truck right into a crowd of New Yr’s revelers in New Orleans acted alone, the FBI mentioned Thursday, reversing its place from a day earlier that he seemingly labored with others within the lethal assault that officers mentioned was impressed by the Islamic State group.
The FBI additionally revealed that the driving force, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas, posted 5 movies on his Fb account within the hours earlier than the assault wherein he proclaimed his assist for the militant group and previewed the violence that he would quickly unleash within the famed French Quarter district.
“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” mentioned Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, calling Jabbar “100% inspired” by the Islamic State.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a pickup truck right into a crowd on Bourbon Road in New Orleans early Wednesday morning, Jan. 1, 2025, killing at the very least 14 individuals.
The assault alongside Bourbon Road killed 14 revelers, together with Jabbar, 42, who was fatally shot in a firefight with police after steering his dashing truck round a barricade and plowing into the group. About 30 individuals have been injured.
It was the deadliest IS-inspired assault on U.S. soil in years, laying naked what federal officers have warned is a resurgent worldwide terrorism risk. It additionally comes because the FBI and different businesses brace for dramatic management upheaval — and certain coverage modifications — after President-elect Donald Trump’s administration takes workplace.
Coolers with crude bombs have been left all through the neighborhood.
Raia pressured that there was no indication of a connection between the New Orleans assault and the explosion Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck crammed with explosives exterior Trump’s Las Vegas lodge. The individual inside that truck, a adorned U.S. Military Inexperienced Beret, shot himself within the head simply earlier than detonation, authorities mentioned.
The FBI continued to hunt for clues about Jabbar however mentioned {that a} day into its investigation, it was assured he was not aided by anybody else within the assault, which killed an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a single mom, a father of two and a former Princeton College soccer star, amongst others.
The assault plans additionally included the location of crude bombs within the neighborhood in an obvious try to trigger extra carnage, officers mentioned. Two improvised explosive gadgets left in coolers a number of blocks aside have been rendered protected on the scene. Different gadgets have been decided to be nonfunctional.
Officers reviewed surveillance video exhibiting individuals standing close to one of many coolers however concluded that they weren’t related “in any approach” with the assault, although investigators nonetheless wish to communicate with them as witnesses, Raia mentioned.
Investigators have been additionally making an attempt to grasp extra about Jabbar’s path to radicalization, which they are saying culminated with him selecting up a rented truck in Houston on Dec. 30 and driving it to New Orleans the next night time.
Jabbar joined the Military in 2007, serving on energetic obligation in human assets and data know-how and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service mentioned. He transferred to the Military Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of workers sergeant.
A U.S. authorities official, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of the official was not licensed to talk publicly, mentioned Jabbar traveled to Egypt in 2023, staying in Cairo for every week, earlier than returning to the U.S. after which touring to Toronto for 3 days. It was not instantly clear what he did throughout these travels.
Abdur-Rahim Jabbar, Jabbar’s youthful brother, advised The Related Press on Thursday that it “doesn’t feel real” that his brother may have performed this.
“I never would have thought it’d be him,” he mentioned. “It’s completely unlike him.”
He mentioned that his brother had been remoted in the previous couple of years, however that he had additionally been in contact with him not too long ago and had not seen any indicators of radicalization.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar
“It’s completely contradictory to who he was and how his family and his friends know him,” he mentioned.
Chris Pousson, of Beaumont, Texas, mentioned he turned associates with Shamsud-Din Jabbar in center college, describing him as somebody who was quiet and reserved and didn’t get into bother.
After highschool, he mentioned, they reconnected on Fb round 2008 or 2009 and would message backwards and forwards all through the following decade.
“If any red flags would have popped off, I would have caught them, and I would have contacted the proper authorities,” he mentioned. “But he didn’t give anything to me that would have suggested that he is capable of doing what happened.”
In New Orleans on Thursday, a still-reeling metropolis inched again towards regular operations.
Authorities completed processing the scene early within the morning, eradicating the final of the our bodies, and Bourbon Road — well-known worldwide for music, open-air ingesting and festive vibes — reopened for enterprise by early afternoon.
The Sugar Bowl school soccer playoff recreation between Notre Dame and Georgia, initially set for Wednesday night time and postponed by a day within the curiosity of nationwide safety, was performed Thursday night. The town additionally deliberate to host the Tremendous Bowl subsequent month.
New Orleans “shouldn’t be solely prepared for recreation day in the present day, however we’re able to proceed to host large-scale occasions in our metropolis as a result of we’re constructed to host at each single flip,” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell mentioned.
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