NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans acted alone, the FBI said Thursday, reversing its position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others in the deadly attack that officials said was inspired by the Islamic State group.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released this photo of Shamsud-Din Jabbar on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2024. (Federal Bureau of Investigation via AP)
The FBI also revealed that the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American citizen from Texas, posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the militant group and previewed the violence that he would soon unleash in the famed French Quarter district.
“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” said Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, calling Jabbar “100% inspired” by the Islamic State.
The attack along Bourbon Street killed 14 revelers, along with Jabbar, 42, who was fatally shot in a firefight with police after steering his speeding truck around a barricade and plowing into the crowd. About 30 people were injured. It was the deadliest IS-inspired assault on U.S. soil in years.
Raia stressed that there was no indication of a connection between the New Orleans attack and the explosion Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck filled with explosives outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel. The person inside that truck, a decorated U.S. Army Green Beret, shot himself in the head just before detonation, authorities said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released photos of surveillance footage that leadsShamsud-Din Jabbar an hour before he drove a truck down Bourbon Street, New Orleans, early Jan. 1, 2025. (Federal Bureau of Investigation via AP)
The FBI continued to hunt for clues about Jabbar but said that a day into its investigation, it was confident he was not aided by anyone else in the attack, which killed an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a single mother, a father of two and a former Princeton University football star, among others.
The attack plans also included the placement of crude bombs in the neighborhood in an apparent attempt to cause more carnage, officials said. Two improvised explosive devices left in coolers several blocks apart were rendered safe at the scene. Other devices were determined to be non-functional.
Officials reviewed surveillance video showing people standing near one of the coolers but concluded that they were not connected “in any way” with the attack, though investigators still want to speak with them as witnesses, Raia said.
Investigators were also trying to understand more about Jabbar’s path to radicalization, which they say culminated with him picking up a rented truck in Houston on Dec. 30 and driving it to New Orleans the following night.
The FBI recovered a black Islamic State flag from his rented pickup and reviewed five videos posted to Facebook, including one in which he said he originally planned to harm his family and friends but “was concerned that news headlines would not focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers,” Raia said. Jabbar also stated that he joined IS before last summer, and he provided a last will and testament, the FBI said.
