New Year’s festivities in the New Orleans French Quarter came to a bloody end early Wednesday after an Army veteran plowed through a large crowd with a pickup truck carrying an ISIS flag, killing at least 15 people and injuring 35 others.
The FBI identified Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar of Houston as the U.S. citizen who drove the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck around 3:15 a.m. past police roadblocks and into a crowd of New Year’s Day revelers at the corner of Bourbon Street and Canal Street.
Jabbar, 42, leaped from his vehicle and began shooting at police, who returned fire and killed him. Two officers were wounded in the shootout but were in stable condition Wednesday evening.
Authorities said they were looking for others who may have been involved in the plot, though they were cagey on reasons for their suspicion.
Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said at a news conference that officials were seeking any potential associates of Jabbar.
“It’s a range of suspects. Right now, we do not want to rule anything out,” she said. “That’s why we’re asking, if anyone has had any interaction with the deceased subject Din Jabbar in the last 72 hours, to provide us with this information.”
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FBI agents and Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies conducted an operation at a home in northern Houston where Jabbar is believed to have lived.
According to local media reports and images broadcast on cable news, police were wielding long guns and flew a drone over the property.
In remarks Wednesday evening at Camp David, President Biden said the FBI reported to him that hours before the attack, Jabbar posted videos on social media in which he said he was inspired by ISIS and expressed a desire to kill.
Mr. Biden said the law enforcement and intelligence communities were looking for any connections, associations and co-conspirators of Jabbar and that “no one should jump to conclusions.”
“I directed my attorney general, the FBI director, the Secretary of Homeland Security, head of the National Counterintelligence Terrorism Center and the intelligence community to work on this intensively until we have full and complete information,” Mr. Biden said.
A Pentagon spokesperson said Jabbar was in the Army as a human resource specialist and information technology specialist from March 2007 to January 2015. He later joined the Army Reserve as an IT specialist through July 2020.
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He deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010 and held the rank of staff sergeant at the end of his service. He was honorably discharged.
In a 4-year-old YouTube video, Jabbar talked about his real estate skills as a property manager in Houston. The video was quickly removed from the platform.
The FBI said the truck used in the attack was a rental, booked using the Turo app.
At a press conference with fellow Louisiana officials, Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat, warned conspirators on the run: “We will find you, and we will bring you to justice.”
Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, said the FBI will provide more information once it has a chance to investigate.
“They will eventually, I promise you … working with state police, working with Homeland Security, working with the City of New Orleans, they’re going to tell you what happened,” he said. “I can promise you that, or I’m going to raise fresh hell. But right now, they’re in the process of trying to catch the other bad guys, and I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt for a while.”
New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the incident was not “just an act of terrorism.”
“This is evil,” she said.
Chief Kirkpatrick said Jabbar wove around police vehicles placed as roadblocks and drove onto the sidewalk to reach the iconic Bourbon Street.
He was “hell-bent” to run over as many people as he could, she said.
Bourbon Street is narrow and is usually sealed off from vehicle traffic to allow revelers to freely walk into and out of the street’s numerous bars and restaurants.
Even at 3 a.m., Bourbon Street is often packed, especially on weekends and on the nights of holidays, such as New Year’s Eve.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the incident was being investigated as “an act of terrorism.”
An ISIS flag was located on the trailer hitch of truck, the FBI said, and agents were trying to determine Jabbar’s affiliations with terrorist groups.
Driving vehicles into crowded streets is a known Islamic State tactic, used in the 2016 attacks on Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, France, on the Berlin Christmas market, and in the 2017 New York bike-path attack.
Authorities said Jabbar was carrying a Glock pistol and a rifle. At least three potential improvised explosive devices were found nearby, including one in Jabbar’s truck.
Two were homemade with nails hidden in coolers.
Kevin Garcia, 22, told CNN that he saw a truck slamming into people on a sidewalk and heard gunshots.
“A body came flying at me,” he said.
Gov. Jeff Landry said he called in National Guard troops to help secure the city before the Sugar Bowl college football game, which was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday night.
“We’re hunting some bad people down, and we’re securing the city,” he said.
He deflected questions about the others whom authorities were seeking and called the situation “very fluid.”
“We want to answer pertinent questions, but anything that would lead to impeding or endangering this investigation is not going to be said,” he told reporters at an afternoon news conference.
Chief Kirkpatrick said the pickup driver sped down Bourbon Street at “a very fast pace, and it was very intentional behavior.”
There are supposed to be bollards in place to block access to Bourbon Street, but officials said they had been malfunctioning and a replacement was in the works.
They planned to be finished by Feb. 9, when the Super Bowl is scheduled in New Orleans.
In the meantime, police stationed vehicles and officers to act as roadblocks, but Chief Kirkpatrick said Jabbar was determined to get around the precautions.
“We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it,” the chief said.
Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Biden issued a statement to console the victims of this “horrific incident.”
“My heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday. There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities,” he said.
President-elect Donald Trump called the incident an “act of pure evil” and part of a wave of lawlessness.
“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” he said on social media.
According to civil records, Jabbar was married twice. His first marriage ended in 2012 and a petition for second divorce began in 2021.
Jabbar’s soon to be ex-wife filed for a temporary restraining order in 2020, public records stated.
The order said that both parties cannot “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury to the other party or to a child of either party” or “threatening the other party or a child of either party with imminent bodily injury.”
The divorce case was dismissed one month later, and a subsequent divorce petition was filed in 2021. Jabbar’s second divorce was finalized in 2022. He and his ex-wife were granted joint custody of their child.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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