Washington, Jan 3: New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar acted alone even though there are indications that he had strong support for ISIS, US President Joe Biden has said.
At least 14 people were killed and 35 others were injured after Jabbar drove his pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street early Wednesday.
The FBI is investigating the incident as an act of terrorism. Jabbar, 42, a former veteran, also died in a shootout with the local police. A resident of Houston, he drove to New Orleans.
“Today, the FBI briefed me that, as of now, we have no information that anyone else is involved in the attack. They’ve established that the attacker was the same person who planted the explosives in those ice coolers in two nearby locations in the French Quarter just a few hours before he rammed into the crowd with his vehicle,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
In response to a question, Biden said he is trying to travel to New Orleans. “They assess he had a remote detonator in his vehicle to set off those two ice chests,” he said.
“The attacker posted several videos just several hours before the attack indicating his strong support for ISIS. Federal law enforcement and the intelligence community are actively investigating any foreign or domestic contacts or connections that could possibly be relevant to the attack,” said the president.
Biden had a meeting with his national security team, soon after he returned from Camp David on Thursday afternoon. He told reporters that they are also continuing to investigate whether or not there’s any connection between the New Orleans attack and the explosion in Las Vegas.
“As of now… they’ve just been briefed, they have not found any evidence of such a connection thus far. I’ve directed them to keep looking. The individual who rented the truck that exploded in Las Vegas also served as active duty US Army, and the FBI is working with the Department of Defense on investigating, including the service member’s possible motives and all those he served with him with things he’d say and do. I directed my team to accelerate these investigations so we have answers to our unanswered questions,” he said.
“Been making every single resource available to get the job done, and we’re going to share the facts as soon as I learn them so the American public doesn’t have to wonder. In the meantime, like I said last night, New Orleans is a city of tremendous spirit. You can’t keep it down. You really can’t, and we’re seeing that today,” Biden said.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Fox News that the suspect in the New Orleans terror attack is part of a “phenomenon of homegrown violent extremists that we have seen develop and emerge over the past ten years.”
According to ABC News, Jabbar served in human resources and information technology roles in the Army from 2007 to 2015, during which he was deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010. He continued as an IT specialist in the Army Reserve from 2015 to 2020. His listed jobs were not direct combat roles, the news channel said. (PTI)
