FBI investigates potential associates of New Orleans attacker in the United States and abroad | Truck attack in New Orleans

Federal authorities investigating the confessed Islamic State (IS) sympathizer who carried out the New Year’s Eve terror attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans say they are still investigating his potential associates elsewhere in the United States and abroad.

At a news conference, officials from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said they were investigating leads in Houston, Atlanta and Tampa, Florida. They also revealed that attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar had traveled to New Orleans twice in the months leading up to the attack, and that on one of those trips he walked along Bourbon Street in bicycle with smart Meta glasses and had also been driving around the French Quarter neighborhood — apparently, officials said, to prepare for the attack he carried out, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more.

Speaking to reporters, FBI Deputy Counterterrorism Director Christopher Raia said, “All the details of the investigation and the evidence we have still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans. We have found no indication of an accomplice in the United States, but we are still looking for potential associates in the United States and beyond our borders.

Raia then revealed the itineraries of several trips – including his ultimate target – that Jabbar, 42, had taken before the deadly attack.

In 2023, Jabbar visited Cairo, the Egyptian capital, from June 22 to July 3, according to Raia. He then flew to Canada on July 10 and returned to the United States three days later.

Then in 2024, Jabbar made at least two trips to New Orleans – one in October and then another in November. Starting Oct. 30, when the city celebrated Halloween, Jabbar stayed in a rental house in New Orleans and remained in the city at least two days during that time, Raia said.

“Jabbar, using Meta glasses, recorded video as he cycled through the French Quarter,” Raia said. “Videos showed Jabbar on that trip in October with his Meta glasses. As we continue to learn more about this journey, we ask anyone who may have seen or interacted with it to contact us now for more information.

A video clip released by the FBI showed Jabbar riding Bourbon during the day on an unspecified date. He was about a block from where he would later crash into a construction blockade during the truck attack and was killed in a shootout with police who confronted him.

Another clip shows him driving on Canal Street about two blocks away and across from the Bourbon Street entrance, where he would later drive around a police car blocking the street and launch the attack.

Another clip showed Jabbar wearing a pair of glasses while they recorded a video. In the clip, he looked at himself in a mirror inside a home, wearing a T-shirt with the words “It all starts with VMWare vSphere” – an apparent reference to the cloud computing virtualization platform.

Raia added that Jabbar was wearing glasses – which allow users to take photos and videos, as well as live stream hands-free – during the night of the attacks. However, Jabbar did not activate the glasses to broadcast the attacks live, Raia said, without elaborating.

It was just the latest disturbing revelation of another tech giant’s weaponization of technology in this case. Officials said Jabbar secured a short-term rental he stayed in in the final hours before the attack on the Airbnb platform. And officials said he rented the truck used in the attack on the Turo platform.

Additionally, on Sunday, authorities released more details about Jabbar’s movements on the day of the attack.

Investigators believe Jabbar crossed the border from Texas into Louisiana around 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 31, Raia said. They said he rented a vehicle that was seen again in Gonzales, Louisiana, just under an hour’s drive west of New Orleans, around 9 p.m.

Around 10 p.m., home camera footage showed Jabbar unloading the white van in New Orleans, outside the rental home he was using in the city’s St. Roch neighborhood, about two miles from Bourbon Street.

At 12:41 a.m., Jabbar parked the truck and walked to Royal and Governor Nichols streets, one block toward the Mississippi River from the 1200 block of Bourbon. He placed the first of two pipe bombs – designed to be detonated by remote control – hidden in a cooler around the 600 block of Bourbon Street at 1:53 a.m.

According to federal authorities, an individual on Bourbon Street — who authorities said they had no reason to believe was involved — dragged the cooler about a block to the 700 block of Bourbon, where authorities found her after the attack.

About 2:20 a.m. in the 500 block of Bourbon, Jabbar placed the second pipe bomb in a cooler, authorities said. At 3:15 a.m., Jabbar drove the rented truck into the crowds of revelers on Bourbon Street, starting at the beginning of the 100 block and crashing in the middle of the 300 block.

The truck, according to authorities, displayed an IS flag. The rifle he used in the shooting was purchased privately from someone who did not know what he had planned, officials said. Officials said Jabbar — who wore body armor and a helmet — made a homemade device intended to suppress the sound of shots fired from the rifle.

Additionally, regarding the devices Jabbar made, authorities said he “did not have access to a detonator, so he used an electric match instead to attempt to set off the explosive material.”

Joshua Jackson, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF New Orleans Field Division, said, “The IED is not unique. The anomaly is that Jabbar used an explosive material triggered by a detonator. Detonators are not easily accessible to the ordinary citizen, so pipe bombs are usually made with an explosive material triggered by a flame.

Jackson added: “Jabbar’s lack of experience and the rudimentary nature of assembling the device is why he used the wrong device to detonate the explosives. »

Shortly after 5 a.m., a fire was reported at the rental home on Mandeville Street. Local firefighters found explosive devices and bomb-making materials.

According to Jackson, Jabbar started the fire using an open flame just before he left. The fire started in the laundry room located next to the washer and dryer at the rental home. Jabbar also placed accelerants in other rooms of the house “which we believe was intentional so that the entire residence would burn down in an effort to destroy evidence of his crimes,” Jackson said.

Jackson also revealed that Jabbar drove alone from Houston to New Orleans. And during his entire stay at the rental location in New Orleans, “he was the only one who was seen coming and going from that location,” Jackson said.

Doorbell camera video footage obtained by CNN also showed Jabbar outside the rental home before the attack by himself.

Speaking at the briefing on bomb-making supplies on short-term rental, Joshua Jackson, the special agent in charge of the ATF’s New Orleans field division, said the materials Recovered explosives are “all relatively common and available right here in the United States.” “. These statements denied some media reports that Jabbar used rare explosive materials, never before seen in the United States or Europe.

Jabbar’s father had converted from Christianity to Islam. This army veteran’s name was given to him at birth, although he later converted to Islam.

As of Sunday, all available indications were that Jabbar had fallen into extremism after marital and financial difficulties. He previously spent more than a decade in the U.S. Army, serving in Afghanistan and earning a service medal in the Global War on Terrorism.