FBI says driver in New Orleans rampage acted alone and was ‘100%’ inspired by Islamic State group
NEW ORLEANS– 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 a view from a day earlier that he likely worked with others in the deadly attack that officials say was inspired by the Islamic State group.
The FBI also revealed that the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbara U.S. citizen from Texas, posted five videos to his Facebook account in the hours before the attack expressing support for the militant group and previewing the violence he would soon unleash in the famed French Quarter.
“This was an act of terror. 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 left 14 revelers dead, along with Jabbar, 42, who was fatally shot during a shootout 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 attack on US soil in years, with federal officials warning it is a reemerging international terrorism threat. It also comes as the FBI and other agencies brace for dramatic changes in leadership — and likely policy shifts — after President Donald Trump’s newly elected administration takes power.
Raia emphasized that there is no evidence of a link between the attack in New Orleans and Wednesday’s explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck filled with explosives outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel. The person in that truck, a decorated U.S. Army green beret, shot himself in the head moments before the blast, authorities said.
The FBI continued to search for clues about Jabbar, but said after a day of investigation they were confident he was not aided by anyone else in the attack, which left people dead. an 18-year-old aspiring nurseincluding a single mother, father of two and former Princeton University football star.
The attack plans also include planting crude bombs nearby in an apparent attempt to cause more carnage, officials said. Two improvised explosive devices left in coolers several blocks apart were made 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 they were “in no way” connected to the attack, although investigators still want to speak to them as witnesses, Raia said.
Investigators also sought to understand more about Jabbar’s path to radicalization, which they said culminated in him picking up a rented truck in Houston on Dec. 30 and driving it to New Orleans the next 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 intended to harm his family and friends but was “concerned that news headlines would not focus on the “war between the believers and the infidels,” Raia also said he had joined ISIS before last summer and had written a last will and testament, the FBI said.
Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, served on active duty in human resources and information technology and deployed to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.
A US government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly, said Jabbar traveled to Egypt in 2023, spending a week in Cairo before returning to the US and then to Toronto traveled. It was not immediately clear what he did during those trips.
Abdur-Rahim Jabbar, Jabbar’s younger brother, told The Associated Press on Thursday that it “doesn’t feel real” that his brother could have done this.
“I never thought it would be him,” he said. “It’s completely different from him.”
He said his brother had become isolated in recent years, but he had also been in contact with him recently and had seen no signs of radicalization.
“It completely contradicts who he was and how his family and friends know him,” he said.
Chris Pousson of Beaumont, Texas, said he befriended Shamsud-Din Jabbar in high school and described him as someone who was quiet, reserved and didn’t get into trouble.
After high school, he said, they reconnected on Facebook around 2008 or 2009 and would message back and forth for the next decade.
“If any red flags would have gone off, I would have caught them and contacted the appropriate authorities,” he said. “But he hasn’t given me anything that would have suggested he was capable of doing what happened.”
In New Orleans, a still-teetering city returned to normal operations on Thursday.
Authorities finished processing the scene and removed the last bodies early in the morning, and Bourbon Street – famous worldwide for music, open-air drinking and festive atmosphere – reopened for business in the early afternoon.
The Sugar Bowl college football playoff game between Notre Dame and Georgia, initially scheduled for Wednesday evening and postponed by a day in the interest of national security, was played Thursday evening. The city also planned to host the Super Bowl next month.
New Orleans “is not only ready for today’s game day, but we are ready to continue hosting large-scale events in our city because we are built to host at every turn,” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.
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Tucker reported from Washington and Mustian reported from Black Mountain, North Carolina. Associated Press reporters Stephen Smith, Chevel Johnson and Brett Martel in New Orleans; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Alanna Durkin Richer, Tara Copp and Zeke Miller in Washington; Kristie Rieken in Beaumont, Texas; Darlene Superville in New Castle, Delaware; Colleen Long in West Palm Beach, Florida; and Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed to this report.