Five days after a pickup truck flying the ISIS flag rammed through a crowd celebrating New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, investigators say they’re studying extra in regards to the background and attainable motives of the driving force who carried out the lethal assault.
While following leads which have cropped up in a number of United States cities outdoors of Louisiana, federal brokers are additionally trying right into a sequence of journeys the driving force took to New Orleans and Cairo, Egypt, in 2023, mentioned Lyonel Myrthil, the particular agent accountable for FBI New Orleans, at a briefing Sunday.
The FBI beforehand recognized the perpetrator as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas. He was fatally shot by police throughout the rampage on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans’ French Quarter, which left 14 folks lifeless and dozens extra injured. Authorities have characterised the assault as an act of terrorism, pointing to social media movies the place Jabbar aligned himself with ISIS, and imagine he was doubtless radicalized on-line.
Federal brokers haven’t discovered proof of any accomplices within the assault and reiterated Sunday that it seems Jabbar acted alone. ISIS has not claimed accountability for the assault and officers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security mentioned there isn’t a established hyperlink to international actors, however investigators are inspecting potential connections between Jabbar’s previous travels and what occurred final week within the French Quarter.
“Our brokers are getting solutions as to the place he went, who he met with and the way these journeys could or could not tie into his actions right here in our metropolis of New Orleans,” Myrthil instructed reporters.
The agent mentioned Jabbar traveled to Cairo from June 22 to July 3, 2023, and to Ontario, Canada, from July 10 to July 13 of that yr.
Jabbar had visited New Orleans not less than twice within the months main as much as the assault, in October and November final yr, in response to Myrthil. The FBI on Sunday shared video footage that Jabbar recorded utilizing Meta glasses throughout a type of journeys, which confirmed him driving by means of the French Quarter on a bicycle.
Myrthil mentioned he was sporting these glasses when he drove into the gang on Bourbon Street however didn’t have the recording characteristic turned on.
Investigators are conducting interviews with a whole bunch of people that they recognized as having information of “key items of this advanced, evolving case,” Myrthil mentioned. They are pursuing leads in Houston, Texas, the place Jabbar lived, in addition to Atlanta, Georgia, and Tampa, Florida. Although the FBI believes Jabbar was the only real attacker on New Year’s Eve, the company mentioned it’s persevering with to probe for “potential associates” inside the U.S. and overseas.
The FBI didn’t present particulars Sunday about who these potential associates may very well be. But Joshua Jackson, the particular agent accountable for the New Orleans subject division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, mentioned the probe did establish a person who offered Jabbar the rifle present in his possession after the assault, in an unlawful personal sale in Texas.
Domestic and worldwide terrorism threats in opposition to the U.S. are “elevated” proper now, mentioned Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, on Sunday. Raia famous that “lone actors, or small cells of people who sometimes radicalize to violence on-line and who primarily use simply accessible weapons, have posed the best terrorism menace to our homeland.”
Rep. Jim Himes, a rating member of the House Intelligence Committee, echoed Raia’s feedback on the issue authorities face in coping with lone actors throughout an interview on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
“The folks and property that we put up in opposition to this menace are one of the best on this planet,” mentioned Himes. “It can also be true that lone wolf attackers, that’s, a person who’s not speaking with anyone overseas, who’s not sending texts or sending emails, are terribly troublesome to detect.”
Himes appeared on “Face the Nation” alongside Rep. Mike Turner, the House Intelligence chairman, who mentioned the Bourbon Street assault from a nationwide safety standpoint.
“There could have been alternatives or instances at which he may have been discovered and will have been prevented,” mentioned Turner, referencing Jabbar’s prior journeys to New Orleans. “We’ll study what these are, and methods by which he may need been- been discovered, and possibly we may have intervened. But these will give us better alternatives at which we’ll look to how we’d have the ability to, sooner or later, discover others.”
