New Orleans driver Shamsud-Din Jabbar ‘100 per cent inspired by ISIS but acted alone:’ FBI
Despite initial concerns that Shamsud-Din Jabbar had accomplices in the New Orleans ramming attack that killed 14, the FBI now says preliminary investigations and CCTV show he was working alone.
A US army veteran inspired by the jihadist group Islamic State likely acted alone when he killed 14 people and injured dozens in a truck attack against a New Orleans crowd of New Year revellers, the FBI has confirmed.
Despite initial concerns that Shamsud-Din Jabbar had accomplices still on the run, preliminary investigations show he was almost certainly alone, FBI deputy assistant director Christopher Raia told reporters.
After reviewing thousands of hours of surveillance video in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter and receiving a deluge of tips from the public, Mr Raia, who emphasised there was no continuing threat to the public said: “We do not assess at this point that anyone else was involved.”
Security experts say Donald Trump may face a heightened tempo of terrorist attacks with implications for Australia after the attack by Jabbar, a 42-year-old US Army veteran.
The FBI is investigating the incident as a terrorist attack, after Jabbar mowed down revellers in a truck with an Islamic State flag attached to the tow bar, while firing a gun from the driver’s seat at the same time.
The revelation that he acted alone came as the person who hired a Tesla truck that exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas was identified as 37-year-old Matthew Alan Livelsberger, a US Army servicemember from Colorado.
The FBI said it was searching a home in Colorado Springs amid an investigation into whether the blast, which came hours after the New Orleans attack killing one person and injuring seven, was an act of terrorism.
The FBI also revealed new evidence detailing the extent of Jabbar’s loyalty to Islamic State and his plans to cause mayhem in the attack in the French Quarter district, which ended only after he was shot by police.
“He was 100 percent inspired by ISIS,” Mr Raia said.
He said the authorities had recovered three mobile phones and two laptops that belonged to Jabbar, which were being examined by FBI specialists. “There is just nothing to indicate through call records, through anything on those devices, through interviews, through anything in our systems that he was aided in this attack by anybody,” Raia said.
Just before the attack he “posted several videos to an online platform proclaiming his support for ISIS,” Mr Raia said.
He also carried a black ISIS flag on the back of the 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.’”
Mr Raia said that Jabbar had planted two homemade bombs in drinks coolers in French Quarter streets. The bombs were viable but were made safe in time, he said.
He 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.
Jabbar’s victims included a nursing student, a Princeton footballer, a young mother and a father of two. He was killed by police after he crashed the car and stepped out armed with an assault rifle and began to shoot at officers. Two police were wounded in the shootout.
Tiger Bech, a 27-year-old trader at a New York brokerage firm and former player on Princeton University’s football team, died of “catastrophic injuries” and was kept on life support until has family could gather at his bedside.
Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, 18, a Mississippi woman who had been preparing to start a nursing program at Blue Cliff College in New Orleans this month, was hit.
Also killed were: Nicole Perez, 28, the mother of a four-year-old; Reggie Hunter, a 36-year-old father of two from Louisiana; Matthew Tenedorio, a 25-year-old audiovisual technician; Hubert Gauthreaux, 21, from Louisiana; and Kareem Badawi, a freshman at the University of Alabama.
Immediately after the attack, FBI assistant special agent in charge for New Orleans Alethea Dunan said the agency did not believe Jabbar was solely responsible. “We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates,” she said.
I have been continually briefed since early this morning regarding the horrific incident that occurred in New Orleans overnight.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 1, 2025
The FBI is taking the lead in the investigation and is investigating this incident as an act of terrorism. I will continue to receive updates…
US President Joe Biden said he had directed his team to make sure every resource was available to federal, state and local law enforcement to “complete the investigation in New Orleans quickly and ensure there’s no remaining threat to the American people”.
The husband of Jabbar’s second wife told The New York Times that he had recently converted to Islam.
Counter-terrorism expert Greg Barton, said he thought it was very likely that the tempo of attacks would increase during the second Trump administration.
“Far-right extremism doubled during Trump’s first term, and now ISIS has returned to a campaign of international attacks,” said Professor Barton, of Deakin University.
“There is likely to be a dynamic of resonance between the two diametrically opposed forms of extremism resulting in an escalation of violence.”
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.
“One of the big concerns is the propensity for copycat attacks,” Professor Barton said.
“The recent Christmas market attack in Germany was vaguely far-right, not ISIS-inspired, but it likely served to trigger this New Orleans ISIS-inspired attack.”
Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings said the FBI would start its investigation “from a concern that these incidents do reflect a broader plot”.
“These things do seem to come in waves across the democracies. Partly because one incident inspires others,” Mr Jennings said. “But also because we do know that ISIS and like-minded groups try to generate attacks in Europe and the US and they are actively looking for people that they can recruit for this purpose.
“And it may well be that, after a few years of ISIS really turning its focus elsewhere to Africa and even into Russia, that there’s just going to be a spate of these incidents now threatening the US and Europe and even Australia.”
Posting on his Truth Social platform, the president-elect linked the attack to illegal immigration, even before the suspect was identified.
“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,” Mr Trump said.
He added: “The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.
“The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!”
New Orleans is one of the most heavily visited destinations in the US and the incident came shortly before the city hosts a major football game, known as the Sugar Bowl, featuring teams from the University of Georgia and Notre Dame. The game was postponed until Thursday afternoon (local time) following the attack.
Policing was heavy over the new year holiday period, 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. “This is not just an act of terrorism – this is evil,” New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said.
In his address, Mr Biden said New Orleans was a place “unlike any other place in the world” and that it was “full of charm and joy”.
“So many around the world love New Orleans because of its history, its culture and above all its people,” he said. “So I know while this person committed a terrible assault on the city, the spirit of our New Orleans will never, never, never be defeated. It will always shine forth.”
At a separate press conference in Las Vegas, Jeremy Schwartz, the FBI’s acting special agent in charge of the city, said they were trying to determine whether the explosion of a Cybertruck outside the Trump Hotel was “an act of terrorism or not”.
The Sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Kevin McMahill said police were “absolutely investigating any connectivity to what happened in New Orleans”.
While he said there were no indications so far of any link to ISIS, he expressed concern that a Tesla vehicle was chosen for the explosion, given that the company’s owner Elon Musk was working with Mr Trump and that the Trump Hotel was the location for the explosion.
Mr Musk posted on his X platform that the incident “appears likely to be an act of terrorism. Both this Cybertruck and the F-150 suicide bomb in New Orleans were rented from Turo. Perhaps they are linked in some way.
“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion,” he said.
In New Orleans, two Israelis were also injured in the attack, Israel’s Foreign Minister confirmed.
“Terror has no place in our world. Israel stands in solidarity with New Orleans and the United States,” Gideon Sa’ar said on X.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said: “We intend to be transparent in assessing any defects that may have existed in the system so we can address it. It’s the only way to ensure any mistakes that were made are corrected.”
He issued an emergency declaration to allow “federal, state and local partners to bring all of the resources necessary to get this city safe. In light of that, I’ve also ordered the mobilisation of a military police company.”
An 18-year-old witness, Zion Parsons, told CNN that it was “truly like a war zone” and “a real-life horror movie”.
Another witness, Jimmy Cothran, told CNN: “One gentleman crushed had tyre tracks across his back. Once they rolled him over he had tyre tracks on his front. He was completely crushed.”
Another 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.
“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.”
French President Emmanuel Macron took to X to condemn the attack, posting in both French and English. “New Orleans, so dear to the hearts of the French, has been struck by terrorism,” he said.
New Orleans was initially founded by colonists from France and the attack took place in the Louisiana city’s famed French Quarter.
Additional reporting: AFP
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