Chilling details about terrorist emerge

Disturbing details are emerging about the suspected terrorist who slammed a pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year revellers in New Orleans.

Disturbing details are emerging about the suspected terrorist who slammed a pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year revellers in New Orleans.

Shamsud Din Jabbar, a US citizen from Texas and an Army veteran, is accused of carrying out the attack in the French Quarter that killed at least 15 people and wounding more than 35. Officials said an ISIS flag was found in the vehicle and that the 42-year-old might not have been acting alone.

The New York Post reports he was living in a run-down trailer park where he kept sheep and goats in the yard — just blocks away from the local mosque.

Jabbar was a US-born military veteran who went from success to a squalid Houston trailer park where sheep roamed his yard.

He served in the Army for more than a decade and deployed to Afghanistan before he carried out his ISIS-inspired attack on Wednesday, according to his service record.

Working as an IT specialist, he was stationed in Afghanistan from February 2009 until January 2010, the service branch said in a summary of military experience.

Jabbar served active duty from March 2007 until January 2015 and was a reservist from January 2015 until July 2020. He left the service at the rank of staff sergeant, according to the Army.

Jabbar was a US-born military veteran.

He moved to a shack after being discharged.

But when he carried out the terror attack — one of the deadliest since 9/11 — Jabbar lived in a squalid trailer park on the outskirts of Houston that is home to mostly Muslim immigrants.

Geese, chickens, and sheep roamed freely in Jabbar’s yard when The Post visited hours after the attack.

One neighbor told The Post she spoke only Urdu, Pakistan’s national language.

The neighborhood is also within walking distance of the local mosque, Masjid Bilal — where no one answered the telephone on Wednesday.

Law enforcement sources told The Post that they found videos Jabbar made where he referenced the Quran — Islam’s holy text.

Jabbar traveled to Egypt for 10 days last year, officials told the Post.

Chilling details about suspect emerge

Jabbar, who officials confirmed was honourably discharged from the US Army, had converted to Islam at some point, according to Dwayne Marsh, who is married to Jabbar’s ex-wife Nakedra Charrlle.

Jabbar and Ms Charrlle had two daughters, ages 15 and 20, Mr Marsh told theNew York Times, adding that “the girls are a mess” after the attack.

Shamsud Din Jabbar is the suspected terrorist who killed 10 in New Orleans.

In recent months, he said, Jabbar had been acting erratically, “being all crazy, cutting his hair” after converting. Mr Marsh and his wife then stopped allowing the daughters to spend time with Jabbar, he said.

A resurfaced video on YouTube from 2020 shows Jabbar spruiking his achievements in the industry.

“I just want to say a bit about me,” he begins. “I was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas and now live in Houston. I’ve been here for all my life with the exception of travelling with the military where I spent 10 years as a human resources specialist.”

Criminal records in Texas show Jabbar had previously been charged with minor infractions — once in 2002 for a misdemeanor theft and once in 2005 for driving with an invalid license.

Jabbar claimed in 2022, as he went through his second divorce, that he could not afford his house payments.

“It is past due in excess of $27,000 and in danger of foreclosure if we delay settling the divorce,” he wrote in emails, according to the New York Times.

He said in the email that the business corporation he had formed, a real estate company, had lost more than $28,000 in the previous year and that he had taken on $16,000 in credit card debt in order to pay for lawyers and for “establishing a second residence.”

‘Very intentional’

Jabbar was fatally shot in an exchange of gunfire with police in the Louisiana city’s famed French Quarter. Two homemade bombs were found and made safe, the FBI said.

The Ford electric vehicle used in the attack was owned by another 42-year-old man from Houston, Texas. It had reportedly been rented out on Turo, and police are in contact with the owner who listed it for rent.

“An ISIS flag was located in the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organisations,” the FBI said in a statement.

FBI agent Alethea Duncan indicated that Jabbar may have had help, saying “we do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible.”

Local police said the incident took place at around 3.15am in the heart of the French Quarter, which was packed with people celebrating the start of 2025.

“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could,” Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters.

Driving at “very high speed” and in a “very intentional” manner, “he was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said.

He wounded two officers in the subsequent shootout. They were listed in stable condition and Kirkpatrick said they would recover.

The vehicle used was a white Ford F-150 electric pick-up, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.

The New Orleans attack came 10 days after a similar car-ramming assault at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg that killed five and wounded more than 200. In that case, police arrested a Saudi man and said he appeared to be mentally disturbed.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that “there is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities.”

President-elect Donald Trump immediately linked the attack to illegal immigration, giving no evidence and before authorities made clear the suspect was American.

Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies work the scene on Bourbon Street. Picture: Michael DeMocker / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP

“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in the country … it turned out to be true,” Trump posted on social media.

Trump also claimed that the nation’s crime rate “is at a level that nobody has ever seen.” In fact, violent crime is sharply down across the country, according to the FBI.

Carnage in iconic neighbourhood

In the small hours of the year’s first day, revellers were celebrating in the French Quarter, a district renowned for its bars, restaurants, jazz history and Mardi Gras parties.

A white truck crashed through a barricade “at a very high rate of speed,” witness Jim Mowrer told CBS News.

“We were in the middle of the road and managed to run off the road onto the sidewalk and into the doorway of a building for cover. We did hear gunfire, saw police running,” he said.

“Once the gunfire stopped, we stayed in the alcove until the gunfire stopped, came out into the street, and came across a lot of — several people who had been hit, (we) wanted to see what we could do to help,” he said.

“People we came across were unfortunately deceased.”

New Orleans is one of the most heavily visited destinations in the United States and on February 9th will stage the NFL’s Super Bowl game — one of the biggest sporting events of the year.

FBI investigators arrive at the scene. Picture: Matthew HINTON / AFP

The attack came just hours before the city was due to host the Sugar Bowl, a major college football game featuring teams from the University of Georgia and Notre Dame.

That game was delayed for 24 hours, officials said.

Policing had already been heavy over the New Year’s holiday, according to the city, as authorities braced for big crowds.

The city police department had announced staffing at “100 per cent, with an additional 300 officers assisting from partner law enforcement agencies,” including on horseback and using unmarked units.

The iconic French Quarter listed special deals for New Year’s, including LGBTQ parties and a drag cabaret near where the incident took place.