FBI now says driver responsible for deadly New Orleans rampage acted alone as Bourbon Street re-opens
The US Army veteran who drove a ute into a crowd of New Year’s revellers acted alone, the FBI said on Thursday, reversing its position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others in carrying out the deadly attack, which officials say was an act of terrorism inspired by the Islamic State (IS) group.
The FBI also revealled that the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US citizen from Texas, posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he aligned himself with IS and told viewers that he had joined the militant group before last summer.
“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.
Military personnel walk down Bourbon street, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025 in New Orleans (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
The attack killed 14 people, including an 18-year-old woman who had ambitions of becoming a nurse. Authorities initially put the death toll at 15, which included Jabbar, who was fatally shot in a firefight with police.
Officials had said on Wednesday that they were seeking additional potential suspects in the attack, which occurred when Jabbar steered around a police blockade and plowed into a crowd.
But Raia said the current assessment is that he acted alone, without any conspirators.
Authorities recovered a black flag of the Islamic State in the truck, and President Joe Biden said he was told by the FBI that Jabbar, a US citizen from Texas, had posted videos to social media hours before the carnage that showed he was motivated by the militant group and expressed a desire to kill.
A man uses a power washer on Toulouse street a day after a vehicle was driven into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon streets, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025 (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
He was shot to death by police, and the FBI said on Wednesday that it believed he did not act alone.
FBI say attacker ‘100 per cent inspired by ISIS’
Investigators found guns and what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the vehicle, along with other explosive devices elsewhere in the French Quarter.
Officials fanned out to serve search warrants and spent hours at a Houston-area home thought to be connected to the investigation.
But as of Thursday morning, no additional arrests were known to have been made, and it was unclear if the FBI was still actively looking for more suspects.
“So what I can tell you right now is that he was 100 per cent inspired by ISIS,” Raia said.
“And so we’re digging — we’re digging through more of the social media, more interviews, working with some of our other partners to-to ascertain just how to ascertain a little bit more about that connection.”
People react at the intersection of Bourbon Street and Canal Street during the investigation after a pickup truck rammed into a crowd of revelers early on New Year’s Day, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Bourbon Street set to re-open before Sugar Bowl
The rampage turned festive Bourbon Street into a macabre scene of maimed victims, bloodied bodies and pedestrians fleeing for safety inside nightclubs and restaurants. In addition to the dead, dozens of people were hurt.
Zion Parsons, 18, of Gulfport, Mississippi, said he saw the truck “barreling through, throwing people like in a movie scene, throwing people into the air.”
“Bodies, bodies all up and down the street, everybody screaming and hollering,” said Parsons, whose friend Nikyra Dedeaux was among the dead.
But by Thursday, a still-reeling city was inching back toward normal operations.
Matthias Hauswirth of New Orleans prays on the street near the scene where a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon streets, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025 (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Authorities finished processing the scene early in the morning, removing the last of the bodies, and Bourbon Street was set to reopen before the Sugar Bowl kick off at 3pm (8am Friday AEDT)
The Sugar Bowl college football game between Notre Dame and Georgia, initially set for Wednesday night and postponed by a day in the interest of national security, was still on for Thursday.
Before the game ahead of the national anthem, a moment of silence honouring the victims of the New Orleans attack will be held, a Sugar Bowl spokesperson told CNN.
The city is also set to host the Super Bowl next month.
Security with bomb sniffing dogs patrol the area around the Superdome ahead of the Sugar Bowl NCAA College Football Playoff game, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in New Orleans (AP Photo/Butch Dill)
Deadliest IS-inspired assault on US soil in years
Federal officials were investigating Jabbar’s potential associations with any terror organisations as they hunted for additional clues in what’s believed to be the deadliest IS-inspired assault on US soil in years.
The New Year’s Day ramming is the deadliest attack in the US since the Maine mass shooting in October 2023, which killed 18 people.
Local officials, meanwhile, faced more questions about security protocols in the city leading up to the attack, the latest example of a vehicle being used as a weapon to carry out mass violence.
Jabbar drove a rented pickup truck onto a sidewalk, going around a police car that was positioned to block vehicular traffic, authorities said. A barrier system meant to prevent vehicle attacks was being repaired in preparation for the Super Bowl.
Jabbar was killed by police after he exited the truck and opened fire on responding officers, New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said. Three officers returned fire. Two were shot and are in stable condition.
The driver “defeated” safety measures in place to protect pedestrians and was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said.
Police officers stand near the scene where a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon streets, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
“This is not just an act of terrorism. This is evil,” she added.
Also on Wednesday, there were deadly explosions in Honolulu and outside a Las Vegas hotel owned by President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden said the FBI was looking into whether the Las Vegas explosion was connected to the New Orleans attack but had “nothing to report” as of Wednesday evening.
At Thursday’s news conference, the FBI said there is not a “definitive link” between the incidents in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
“We are following up on all potential leads and not ruling everything out,” Raia said.
“However, at this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas.”
‘Objective evil’
A photo circulated among law enforcement officials showed a bearded Jabbar wearing camouflage next to the truck after he was killed.
The intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP said he was wearing a ballistic vest and helmet. The flag of the Islamic State group was on the truck’s trailer hitch, the FBI said.
“For those people who don’t believe in objective evil, all you have to do is look at what happened in our city early this morning,” US Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said.
“If this doesn’t trigger the gag reflex of every American, every fair-minded American, I’ll be very surprised.”
‘Just blood’: New Orleans reels after deadly terror attack
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Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying 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.
‘Our nation grieves with you’
Hours after the attack, several coroner’s office vans were parked on the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets, cordoned off by police tape with crowds of dazed tourists standing around, some trying to navigate their luggage through the labyrinth of blockades.
“We looked out our front door and saw caution tape and dead silence, and it’s eerie,” said Tessa Cundiff, an Indiana native who moved to the French Quarter a few years ago.
“This is not what we fell in love with, it’s sad.”
Biden, speaking from the presidential retreat at Camp David, addressed the victims and the people of New Orleans: “I want you to know I grieve with you. Our nation grieves with you as you mourn and as you heal.”
FBI officials have repeatedly warned about an elevated international terrorism threat due to the Israel-Hamas war.
In the last year, the agency has disrupted other potential attacks, including in October when it arrested an Afghan man in Oklahoma for an alleged Election Day plot targeting large crowds.
