Driver in fatal New Orleans truck ramming may not have acted alone, had Islamic State flag

A US Army veteran with an Islamic State flag on his truck swerved around makeshift barriers and ploughed into New Orleans’ crowded French Quarter on New Year’s Day, killing 15 people in an attack officials believe was carried out with the help of others.

The suspect, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a US citizen from Texas who once served in Afghanistan, was killed in a shootout with police after ramming the crowd.

The attack injured about 30 other people, including two police officers wounded by gunfire from the suspect. It took place around 3.15 am (5.15pm, Singapore time), near the intersection of Canal and Bourbon Streets, a historic tourist destination known for its music and bars where crowds were celebrating the new year.

Police and political leaders vowed to capture any accomplices.

With the perceived danger ongoing, officials postponed the Sugar Bowl, a classic college football game played in New Orleans each year on New Year’s Day. The game between Notre Dame and Georgia was put off for 24 hours until Thursday night as police swept parts of the city looking for possible explosive devices and converged on neighbourhoods in search of clues.

The city will also host the NFL Super Bowl on Feb 9.

The FBI said that police found weapons and a potential explosive device in the vehicle and that two potential explosive devices were found in the French Quarter and rendered safe.

An ISIS flag was attached to the trailer hitch of the rented vehicle, prompting an investigation into possible links to terrorist organisations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

NOT SOLELY RESPONSIBLE: FBI

“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible. We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates,” FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan told reporters.

Asked how many potential accomplices the FBI was looking into, she said it was a “range of suspects” and urged anyone who had contact with Jabbar in the previous 72 hours to contact authorities.

CNN and the Associated Press had reported that surveillance video captured three men and a woman placing an improvised explosive device in the French Quarter, but the law enforcement sources they cited later backed off that conclusion, saying it was unclear what the people in the video had done.

The FBI, which is the lead investigator on the case, also said it and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office were conducting an operation in a north Houston neighbourhood in an area matching one of Jabbar’s known residences.

US President Joe Biden condemned what he called a “despicable” act and said investigators were looking into whether there might be a link to a Tesla truck fire outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas. So far, there was no evidence linking the two events, Biden said.

“The FBI also reported to me that mere hours before the attack, he posted videos on social media indicating that he’s inspired by ISIS, expressing the desire to kill,” Biden said of the New Orleans suspect.

CNN, citing officials briefed on the investigation, said the suspect recorded videos in which he mentioned dreams about joining ISIS.

Officials told CNN the suspect, obscured by darkness in the videos, spoke about his divorce and plans to gather his family for a “celebration” with the intent of killing them. He later changed his plans and said that he joined ISIS, CNN said.

ISIS - often called Islamic State or ISIL - is a Muslim militant group that once imposed a reign of terror over millions of people in Iraq and Syria until it collapsed following a sustained military campaign by a US-led coalition.

Javed Ali, an associate professor of practice at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy, said such car attacks are tactics long encouraged by Islamic State leadership to sow fear and panic.

“By 2015, there was guidance from senior ISIS figures for people around the world who believe in the ISIS ideology to basically use any means at their disposal to conduct attacks,” he told CNA’s Asia First.

“After those messages were sent out, we started to see vehicle ramming attacks all over Europe. Fast forward to New Year’s Day 2025 in New Orleans, it’s a replay of the similar messages we heard almost a decade ago from ISIS leaders.”

Public records show Jabbar worked in real estate in Houston. In a promotional video posted four years ago, Jabbar describes himself as born and reared in Beaumont, a city about 130km east of Houston, and saying he spent 10 years in the US military as a human resources and IT specialist.

Jabbar was in the regular Army from March 2007 until January 2015 and then in the Army Reserve from January 2015 until July 2020, an Army spokesperson said. He deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010 and held the rank of Staff Sergeant at the end of service.

“SCREAMING AND DEBRIS”

Mike and Kimberly Stricklin of Mobile, Alabama, said they were in New Orleans for a bluegrass concert and heading back to their hotel just 20m from where the truck made impact with some pedestrians.

“There were people everywhere,” Kimberly Strickland said in an interview. “You just heard this squeal and the rev of the engine and this huge loud impact and then the people screaming and debris - just metal - the sound of crunching metal and bodies.”

About 400 officers were on duty in the French Quarter at the time of the incident, including a number of officers who had established a makeshift barrier to prevent anyone from driving into the pedestrian zone, police said.

“This is not just an act of terrorism, this is evil,” Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters. She said the two wounded police officers are in stable condition.

In response to vehicle attacks on pedestrian malls around the world, New Orleans was in the process of removing and replacing the steel barriers known as bollards that restrict vehicle traffic in the Bourbon Street area.

Construction began in November and was due to be completed in time for the Super Bowl, officials said. In the meantime, police vehicles and officers attempted to provide a barrier, Kirkpatrick said.

“This particular terrorist drove around, onto the sidewalk and got around the hard target,” Kirkpatrick said.

Jon Alterman, Middle East expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said ISIS, though diminished in the field, has long attempted to radicalise people online, with only occasional success.

“It doesn’t take a huge operation to find individuals in personal distress and give them a sense that their life can have some greater meaning,” he said in an email.

While mass shootings are more commonly a threat in the United States, vehicle rammings have been used to kill civilians in the US and around the world.

Last month in Germany, a 50-year-old man was charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder after police said he ploughed a car through crowds at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing five people and injuring scores.

Source: Reuters

--Agencies