Possibility of broader terror plot raises fears of further attacks

The motives of the murderous driver who killed 15 and injured some 35 in the French Quarter in New Orleans aren’t entirely clear as we write this. But officials say they are investigating the rampage as an act of terrorism, and emerging evidence suggests the killer may have been a jihadist radical who had accomplices.

Police sources identified the driver as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US citizen and Army veteran from Texas. His truck crashed into a crane after it sped along Bourbon Street aiming at pedestrians with deadly intent. He shot at police from his car, wounded two officers, and was killed in return fire.

Police say they found other weapons and improvised explosive devices in the truck and IEDs elsewhere in the French Quarter, and the FBI says a flag associated with Islamic State was found with the vehicle. Islamic State, or ISIS, is the jihadist group that created a caliphate in Syria and Iraq during the Obama Administration until US bombing eliminated its last sanctuary in the first Trump term.

More ominously, the FBI said it believes Jabbar didn’t act alone and is actively pursuing four others who were observed on video planting IEDs elsewhere in the city.

“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” FBI assistant special agent in charge Alethea Duncan said. “The FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organisations.”

Domestic acts of terrorism inspired from abroad aren’t uncommon, though they have been rare of late in the US. Last month a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia rammed a car into a Christmas market in the eastern German town of Magdeburg, killing five and wounding dozens.

FBI Special Agent Aletha Duncan speaks to the media after 15 people were killed on Bourbon Street in a ramming ‘terror’ attack. Picture: Getty Images

But the possible existence of a broader terror plot raises concerns about other potential attacks, and not merely in New Orleans. That city was supposed to host college football’s Sugar Bowl Thursday morning (AEDT) and the game was postponed until Friday. It will also host the Super Bowl in February, and jihadists know big public sporting events are vulnerable.

One obvious message is that the forces of Islamic radicalism haven’t gone away. They are still looking for security weaknesses to exploit for mass murder, and the US homeland isn’t safe from foreign-influenced or -planned attacks.

Christopher Wray, the FBI director until Donald Trump takes office, has been saying for months that the bureau is on high alert for another attack. “We’ve seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole ’nother level” since the October 7 massacre in Israel, Mr Wray told a House committee in April.

“Looking back over my career in law enforcement, I’d be hard pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once. But that is the case as I sit here today.”

A particular concern is the porous US border with Mexico that we know people on the US terror watch list have passed through in recent years. What about others we don’t know?

Another lesson is that it’s still vital to stay on offence against jihadist groups abroad, lest they be able to establish sanctuaries from which they can plan attacks on the West as they did on 9/11.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan has meant the US has lost its ability to monitor ISIS or related terror enclaves in that country.

This is a good reason for Mr Trump to retain the current US base in Syria whose mission has been to deter the revival of an ISIS or al Qaeda safe haven. Mr Trump has said Syria’s civil war isn’t America’s concern, but it surely is if the country becomes a jihadist state or allows new terror camps to form. The Kurds are holding thousands of ISIS fighters as prisoners in the area they control in eastern Syria.

The possible return of jihadist terror to the homeland isn’t a message anyone wanted to hear in 2025, but it is a reality that the next Administration will have to deter and defeat.

The Wall Street Journal