FBI Says New Orleans Attacker Was an Army Veteran With an ISIS Flag

 

Fifteen people were killed and over 30 were injured in the car-ramming attack

by Dave DeCamp January 1, 2025 at 4:36 pm ET 

CategoriesNews

The FBI said Wednesday that the man who drove a truck into a crowd in New Orleans to kill as many people as he could was a Texas-born US Army veteran who was carrying an ISIS flag.

The early morning New Year’s Day attack in the French Quarter killed at least 15 people and injured more than 30. The attacker, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was killed in a firefight with police after the crash.

The FBI said in a statement that weapons, including potential Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and an ISIS flag were found inside the vehicle. The FBI said other potential IEDS were found in the French Quarter, and Jabbar was likely not acting alone.

“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” Althea Duncan, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI New Orleans field office, told reporters.

According to The Associated Press, investigators are looking for additional suspects and reviewed video showing three men and a woman placing an IED in connection with the attack. The Sugar Bowl, the annual college football game held in New Orleans, has been postponed to Thursday.

Also on Wednesday, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, killing the driver and injuring seven people nearby. The incident is being investigated as a potential terrorist attack, although it’s possible it could have been an accident. Officials said the truck contained “fireworks-style mortars,” and investigators are working to determine if they were set off on purpose.

In regards to the New Orleans attack, the FBI said it was working to determine Jabbar’s “potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.” Sources told CNN that investigators have found “writings that the FBI believes support investigators’ view that the attack was inspired by ISIS.”

A spokesman for the US Army said Jabbar was in the Army from 2007 to 2020. From 2007 to 2015, he served as a human resources specialist and information technology specialist on active duty and deployed to Afghanistan once during that time. From 2015 to 2020, Jabbar was in the reserves.

While the motive remains unclear, the attack comes after more than a year of the US backing Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, and support for Israel has historically been a motive for terrorist attacks against the US.

The US has also significantly stepped up its bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria in recent months. On the other hand, the US helped Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda that has a similar ideology to ISIS, take over Syria.

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/01/01/fbi-says-new-orleans-attacker-was-an-army-veteran-with-an-isis-flag/