New Orleans attacker behind NYE rampage acted alone, FBI says

New Orleans: The US Army veteran who deliberately drove into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans joined the Islamic State terrorist group last year but appears to have acted alone in conducting his deadly attack.

According to the FBI, Shamsud-Din Jabbar also made a series of videos just before he deliberately ran over partygoers on Bourbon Street this week – including one in which he declared he wanted to kill family and friends but was worried that news headlines wouldn’t focus enough on “believers and disbelievers”.

Military personnel walk down Bourbon Street on Thursday in New Orleans.Credit: AP

Two days after one of the worst terrorist attacks on US soil since September 11, 2001, the FBI has walked back its initial suggestion that Jabbar may have been working with others when he embarked on the rampage that killed 14 people – and also led to his own death by police – in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

But FBI assistant director Christopher Raia said there was no doubt that his killing was carefully planned out, and that Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen living in Texas, was “100 per cent inspired by ISIS”.

“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated – and an evil act,” Raia told reporters at a press conference in New Orleans on Thursday morning.

The New Year’s attack rocked Americans as they woke up to the first day of 2025, only to learn that Bourbon Street, one of country’s most festive hot spots, had become a chilling crime scene filled with mangled bodies, blood and carnage.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, in an undated passport photo provided by the FBI.Credit: AP

Five hours later, another shocking incident occurred on the other side of the US, when a Tesla Cybertruck packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters burst into flames and exploded outside the entrance of US President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel near the Las Vegas Strip.

One person died in the attack, who authorities have now identified as active duty Army soldier Matthew Livelsberger, a Green Beret. Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters on Thursday that investigators believe he may have shot himself in the head before the vehicle exploded.

The FBI descended on a property in Colorado Springs on Thursday, believed to be Livelsberger’s, but it has not yet found any evidence to suggest the Las Vegas explosion was connected to the attack in New Orleans or ISIS.

“We are following up on all potential leads and not ruling everything out. However, at this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas,” he said, before adding: “I’ll preface everything with what I started with in the beginning, which was this is very early in an investigation like this.”

More than 1000 law enforcement officials have been deployed to investigate the Bourbon Street attack, which took place at 3.15am on January 1 – the same day thousands were due to attend the highly anticipated Sugar Bowl college football quarter-final at the nearby Caesars Superdome.

The game, originally scheduled for Wednesday night at the 70,000-seat venue, had been pushed back 24 hours as authorities moved to ensure the area was safe and that Bourbon Street – which is known for its often raucous bars, clubs and restaurants – was cleaned up.

However, Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced on Thursday that all the victims had now been identified, and that the famed strip would reopen. Local officials also insist it will be secure and safe for next month’s NFL Superbowl and the city’s world-famous Mardi Gras parade in March.

“The City of New Orleans is not only ready for game day today, but we’re ready to continue to host large-scale events in our city because we are built to host at every single turn,” Cantrell said.

The FBI’s investigation painted a clearer picture of Jabbar’s movements before and during the attack. According to authorities, he rented a Ford F-150 pick-up truck in Houston on December 30 and drove from there to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve.

In that time, he posted five videos on social media, the first of which was posted at 1.29am, in which “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’.”

He posted his final video at 3.02am and provided a last will and testament. Then, at 3.15am, he drove down Canal Street and then a footpath on Bourbon Street before running over pedestrians. New Orleans Police say he opened fire on officers, who in turn shot him dead.

Surveillance video also showed that before driving his truck into the crowd, Jabbar planted improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in coolers at two locations – the intersection of Bourbon and Orleans streets, and another two blocks away.

While the precinct has now been declared safe, the incident has raised concerns about the resurgence of ISIS in the US. With three weeks until he leaves office, US President Joe Biden called a meeting with his National Security Council in the situation room at the White House to discuss the issue.

Meanwhile, Trump continued to try to tie the attack to undocumented immigrants and the Biden administration’s policies – despite the fact the New Orleans suspect was born in the US.

“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ [sic] I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe,” Trump wrote on his website, Truth Social. “That time has come, only worse than ever imagined.”

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.