A man “hell-bent on carnage” unleashed terror in New Orleans driving a vehicle flying an Islamic State flag into a crowd celebrating the dawn of the New Year leaving 10 people dead and at least 35 hurt, officials said
The man who was killed in a shootout with police was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas.
The FBI said that they were “working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organisations”.
So far, no terrorist group has claimed credit for the attack.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the attacker “was hell-bent on creating the carnage that he did” and dodged barriers to drive into the iconic Bourbon Street, a venue famed for revelries in the city.
Jabbar, wearing an armoured vest, ploughed his truck into the crowd, got out, and fired at police who shot him dead, officials said. Two police were injured.
An improvised explosive device — country bomb — was found on the vehicle, the FBI said.
“Other potential IEDs were also located in the French Quarter (of the city). The FBI’s special agent bomb technicians are working with our law enforcement partners to determine if any of these devices are viable, and they will work to render those devices safe,” the FBI said.
Some suspicious devices were neutralised through controlled explosions.
President Joe Biden denounced the attacks as “horrific” carried out with “no justification”.
He said in a statement that he was “continually briefed” by “federal law enforcement leadership and my homeland security team” about “the horrific incident that occurred there overnight”.
In a brief encounter with reporters, he said his reactions were “anger” and “frustration”.
President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office in three weeks, called the attack “pure evil”.
He said on Truth Social, “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”.
Jabbar appears to have lived long enough in the US to have received citizenship.
Officials said that Jabbar, who lived in Houston, had minor encounters with law enforcement and was charged with theft and driving with a suspended licence.
Online records also showed him involved in divorce and child support cases in Texas.
Officials said that he used a “rideshare” vehicle — likely a rental truck.
The 3:15 a.m. attack took place hours before the Sugar Bowl, an annual college football game that draws a crowd of over 80,000 and a television audience of millions in the city.
Bourbon Street in the city’s French Quarter, is one of the places in the US where large New Year celebrations are held and is famed for the annual Mardi Gras parade.
Elsewhere in the US, New Year’s celebrations went off without incident.
At the New Year Ball Drop at New York’s Times Square, hundreds of thousands of people, local and tourist, ignored the rain to revel in the world’s biggest celebration amid heavy security.
Terrorists have weaponised vehicles in their mission of carnage.
Terrorists have used vehicles for attacks. The New Orleans attack comes barely 10 days after a Saudi national drove a car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany killing five and injuring 200 people.
German officials were puzzled by the attack as the alleged attacker, a doctor, had made anti-Islamist statements and suspected that he may be mentally ill.
In 2016, an Islamist terrorist rammed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin killing 13 people and in another incident claimed by the Islamic State, 86 people were killed in Nice, France, by a man who drove into a crowd.
In the US, a White Supremacist attacked a civil rights protest in Charlottesville killing one person and injuring 35 the next year.
A Christmas parade in Waukesha was attacked with a vehicle killing six people and injuring 62 others. The person convicted was a non-White sympathiser of the anti-government Sovereign Citizen Movement.
