New Orleans killer acted alone, professed loyalty to jihadist group: FBI

Federal agents walk along Bourbon Street after it reopened to the public on January 2, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana, following a terrorist attack on January 1.  At least 15 people were killed and 30 injured on January 1 when a vehicle plowed overnight into a New Year’s crowd in the heart of the thriving New Orleans tourist district, authorities in the southern US city said. (AFP)

NEW ORLEANS – A US army veteran loyal to the Islamic State jihadist group likely acted alone when he killed 14 and injured dozens in a truck attack on a crowd of New Year revelers in New Orleans, the FBI said Thursday.

Despite initial concerns that Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, had accomplices still on the run, preliminary investigations show he likely acted alone, FBI deputy assistant director Christopher Raia said.

“We do not assess at this point that anyone else was involved,” Raia said.

However, new evidence emerged detailing the extent of the US citizen’s loyalty to Islamic State and his plans to cause mayhem in the early morning attack in New Orleans’s French Quarter entertainment district, ending only after he was shot in a gunbattle with police.

More than 30 people were injured.

“He was 100 percent inspired by ISIS,” Raia said, using an alternative name for the international jihadist group.

Just before the attack, in which Jabbar slammed a rented Ford F-150 pickup into the crowd, he “posted several videos to an online platform proclaiming his support for ISIS,” Raia said.

A black ISIS flag was affixed to a pole on the back of his vehicle.

In one video, Jabbar “explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers.'”

Raia said Jabbar had planted two homemade bombs in drinks coolers in French Quarter streets.

The bombs were viable — and according to President Joe Biden had remote detonators — but were made safe in time, Raia said.

Raia clarified that the total death toll of 15 from Wednesday’s carnage included 14 victims and Jabbar himself, who died after wounding two police officers in an exchange of gunfire.

Vegas incident likely separate

The New Orleans attack coincided with a high-profile incident in Las Vegas a few hours later where a Tesla Cybertruck blew up outside the Trump International Hotel.

In the bizarre incident, a US special forces soldier shot himself inside the Tesla, which then was engulfed in flames after a crude homemade bomb went off inside the car.

Law enforcement in Las Vegas said the decorated soldier, Matthew Alan Livelsberger, apparently committed suicide. However, the motive for the subsequent blast and the choice of the Trump-linked building remained unknown.

In an echo of the New Orleans incident, the vehicles in both cases had been rented through the car-sharing app Turo.

FBI Special Agent Spencer Evans said authorities were still open to a potential terrorism motive but there was nothing “definitively” pointing to any ideology.

Raia said: “At this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas.”

Cleanup on Bourbon Street

In New Orleans’s French Quarter, the heart of the area’s famous nightlife — Bourbon Street — was freshly scrubbed and open for business.

And after a 24-hour delay due to the violence, the city staged the major Sugar Bowl college football game in its Superdome. The stadium will also host the NFL’s Super Bowl championship game in February.

“New Orleans is a city of tremendous spirit. You can’t keep it down. You really can’t. And we’re seeing that today. The Sugar Bowl is back on,” Biden said at the White House.

Trump rant

The terrifying New Year’s attack came three weeks before Trump takes over as president.

The Republican has used the mayhem to push his anti-immigrant agenda, despite the slain killer being a US-born citizen.

Overnight, Trump again took to social media to link the attack to “OPEN BORDERS.”

In a lengthy rant, he berated law enforcement for “attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM.”

Claiming “the USA is breaking down,” Trump said, without giving details: “the CIA must get involved.”

Radicalization

Police say Jabbar drove at high speed into the crowd, intent on causing maximum casualties.

“There were bodies and blood and all the trash,” bystander Zion Parsons told CNN. “People were terrified, running, screaming.”

“It was just scary, I cried my eyes out, honestly,” tourist Ethan Ayersman, 20, told AFP.

The Pentagon said Jabbar served in the Army as a human resources specialist and an IT specialist from 2007 to 2015, and then in the army reserve until 2020.

He deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 until January 2010, an army spokesperson said.

Raia said the growing focus now is on how Jabbar became radicalized.

“That’s the stuff in the coming days, as far as that path to radicalization, that we’re really going to be digging into and making a priority of,” he said.