Driver kills 15 New Year’s revelers in New Orleans truck attack, FBI doesn’t believe he acted alone

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An Military veteran driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Islamic State group wrought carnage on New Orleans’ raucous New Yr’s celebration, killing 15 folks as he steered round a police blockade and slammed into revelers earlier than being shot lifeless by police.

The FBI mentioned it’s investigating the assault early Wednesday within the metropolis’s famed French Quarter as a terrorist act and doesn’t imagine the driving force acted alone.

Investigators discovered a number of improvised explosive units, together with two pipe bombs that have been hid inside coolers and wired for distant detonation, in line with a Louisiana State Police intelligence bulletin obtained by the Related Press.

The bulletin, counting on info gathered quickly after the assault, additionally mentioned surveillance footage confirmed three males and a lady inserting one of many units, however federal officers didn’t instantly verify that element and it wasn’t clear who the people within the video have been or what connection they could have needed to the assault.

The rampage turned festive Bourbon Avenue into macabre mayhem. Along with the lifeless, greater than 30 folks have been injured. Pedestrians fled to security inside nightclubs and eating places. One man watched in horror as authorities positioned a tarp over his good friend’s physique after she was hit and thrown some 30 toes (9 meters).

A university soccer playoff sport between Georgia-Notre Dame on the close by Superdome was postponed till Thursday. A Georgia pupil was critically harm within the assault, college president Jere Morehead mentioned.

“This isn’t simply an act of terrorism. That is evil,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick mentioned. The motive force “defeated” security measures in place to guard pedestrians, she mentioned, and was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the injury that he did.”

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The FBI recognized the driving force as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, and mentioned it’s working to find out Jabbar’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.

“We don’t imagine that Jabbar was solely accountable,” FBI Assistant Particular Agent in Cost Alethea Duncan mentioned at a information convention.

Lethal explosions additionally rocked Honolulu on New Yr’s Eve and Las Vegas hours after the New Orleans assault, although authorities haven’t mentioned in the event that they’re associated.

In New Orleans, authorities mentioned, Jabbar drove a rented pickup truck onto a sidewalk, going round a police automotive that was positioned to dam vehicular visitors. A barrier system meant to forestall car assaults was present process repairs in preparation for the Tremendous Bowl, which is scheduled to happen there in February.

Police killed Jabbar after he exited the truck and opened hearth on responding officers, Kirkpatrick mentioned. Three officers returned hearth. Two officers have been shot and are in steady situation, police mentioned.

Investigators recovered a handgun and AR-style rifle, in line with a regulation enforcement official who was not licensed to debate the investigation publicly and spoke on situation of anonymity.

A photograph circulated amongst regulation enforcement officers confirmed a bearded Jabbar carrying camouflage subsequent to the truck after he was killed. The intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP mentioned he was carrying a ballistic vest and helmet. The flag of the Islamic State group was on the truck’s trailer hitch, the FBI mentioned.

“For these individuals who don’t imagine in goal evil, all it’s a must to do is take a look at what occurred in our metropolis early this morning,” U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican, mentioned. “If this doesn’t set off the gag reflex of each American, each fair-minded American, I’ll be very shocked.”

Jabbar joined the Military in 2007, serving on lively responsibility in human sources and knowledge know-how and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service mentioned. He transferred to the Military Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of workers sergeant.

Zion Parsons, 18, of Gulfport, Mississippi, mentioned he noticed the truck “barreling by means of, throwing folks like in a film scene, throwing folks into the air.”

Parsons mentioned he heard gunshots and ran by means of a grotesque aftermath of bleeding and maimed victims.

“Our bodies, our bodies all up and down the road, everyone screaming and hollering,” Parsons advised the AP. “Individuals crying on the ground, like mind matter everywhere in the floor.”

His good friend, 18-year-old aspiring nurse Nikyra Dedeaux, was among the many folks killed.

Parsons mentioned he referred to as hospitals and the morgue, trying to find solutions concerning the location of Dedeaux’s physique. He later referred to as her household to ship the grim information.

“I hadn’t had time to cry up till I referred to as her mom and he or she requested me, ‘The place’s my child,’” Parsons mentioned. “That broke me.”

Gov. Jeff Landry urged folks to keep away from the realm, which remained an lively crime scene.

Hours after the assault, a number of coroner’s workplace vans have been parked on the nook of Bourbon and Canal streets, cordoned off by police tape with crowds of dazed vacationers standing round, some attempting to navigate their baggage by means of the labyrinth of blockades.

“We regarded out our entrance door and noticed warning tape and lifeless silence and it’s eerie,” mentioned Tessa Cundiff, an Indiana native who moved to the French Quarter a number of years in the past. “This isn’t what we fell in love with, it’s unhappy.”

Close by, life went on as regular within the metropolis recognized to some for a motto that interprets to “let the great occasions roll.” At a restaurant a block from the place the truck got here to relaxation, folks crowded in for breakfast as upbeat pop music performed. Two blocks away, folks drank at a bar, seemingly as if nothing occurred.

President Joe Biden, chatting with reporters in Delaware, mentioned he felt “anger and frustration” over the assault however that he would chorus from additional remark till extra is understood.

“My coronary heart goes out to the victims and their households who have been merely attempting to have fun the vacation,” Biden mentioned in an announcement. “There isn’t any justification for violence of any sort, and we is not going to tolerate any assault on any of our nation’s communities.”

The assault is the most recent instance of a car getting used as a weapon to hold out mass violence, a pattern that has alarmed regulation enforcement officers and that may be tough to guard in opposition to.

If confirmed as IS-inspired, the assault would symbolize the deadliest such assault on U.S. soil in years. FBI officers have repeatedly warned about an elevated worldwide terrorism risk because of the Israel-Hamas warfare.

Within the final 12 months, the FBI has disrupted different potential assaults impressed by the militant group, together with in October when brokers arrested an Afghan man in Oklahoma accused of plotting an Election Day assault concentrating on giant crowds.

Tucker reported from Washington, D.C. and Mustian reported from New York. Related Press reporters Stephen Smith, Chevel Johnson and Brett Martel in New Orleans; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Alanna Durkin Richer and Zeke Miller in Washington, D.C.; and Darlene Superville in New Citadel, Delaware, contributed to this report.