US President Joe Biden has said New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar acted alone, although there are indications he had strong support from ISIS.
Jabbar drove his pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street early Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 35 others.
The FBI is investigating the incident as an act of terrorism. Jabbar, 42, a former veteran, also died in a shootout with local police. A native of Houston, he drove to New Orleans.
“Today, the FBI told me that, as of now, we have no information that anyone else is involved in the attack. They have established that the attacker was the same person who placed explosives in those ice coolers at two nearby locations in the French Quarter just hours before he drove his vehicle into the crowd,” Biden told reporters at the White House. Thursday.
Responding to a question, Biden said he was trying to visit New Orleans. “Their assessment is that he had a remote detonator in his vehicle to set off those two ice chests,” he said.
“Just hours before the attack, the attacker had posted several videos indicating his strong support for ISIS. Federal law enforcement and the intelligence community are actively investigating any foreign or domestic contacts or connections that may be potentially relevant to the attack, the president said.
Biden held a meeting with his national security team shortly after returning from Camp David on Thursday afternoon. He told reporters they were also investigating whether there was a connection between the New Orleans attack and the explosion in Las Vegas.
“So far… they have been briefed, they have not found any evidence of any such connection so far. I have instructed them to keep watching. The man who rented the truck that exploded in Las Vegas also served on active duty in the U.S. Army, and the FBI is working with the Department of Defense on an investigation, including the service member’s possible motives and all those involved. Including investigating things that he did to her. Say and do. I have directed my team to expedite these investigations so that we have answers to our unanswered questions,” he said.
“I am making every available resource available to get the job done, and as soon as I know the facts I am going to share them so the American public is not surprised. Meanwhile, as I said last night, New Orleans is a city of tremendous excitement. You can’t put it down. You really can’t do that, and we’re seeing that today,” Biden said.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Fox News that the New Orleans terror attack suspect is “part of the phenomenon of domestic violent extremists that we have seen develop and emerge over the last 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 served as an IT specialist in the Army Reserve from 2015 to 2020. Their listed jobs were not direct combat roles, the news channel said. PTI LKJ RHL
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