The suspect in the New Orleans attack that killed 15 people on New Year's Day did not act alone, US investigators believe.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen, is believed to have driven a pick-up truck into a crowd on a busy New Orleans street, before exiting the vehicle and firing a weapon. He was shot dead by police at the scene.
The FBI says an Islamic State (IS) group flag was found inside the vehicle he was driving, while two improvised explosive devices were found nearby.
FBI assistant special agent Alethea Duncan said the agency did not believe Jabbar was "solely responsible" and were investigating the incident as an "act of terrorism".
A man intentionally drove a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter early on New Year's Day, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens of others, officials said. A black ISIS flag was flying from the truck's rear bumper, and the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.
The man driving the vehicle has been identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, the FBI said.
In televised remarks Wednesday evening, President Biden said the FBI has determined that just hours before the attack, Jabbar "posted videos to social media indicating that he was inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill."
The vehicle was an electric Ford pickup truck that appears to have been rented, the FBI said. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on social media Jabbar rented the truck on Dec. 30, while living in the Houston area, before heading to New Orleans.
The potential link was just one thread being pulled by officials Thursday, a day after 15 people were killed when a man plowed a pickup truck flying an ISIS flag through New Year's Day revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
Authorities are investigating a possible military connection between the New Orleans car-ramming suspect and the person who died after a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside Las Vegas' Trump International Hotel on New Year's Day, two law enforcement sources familiar with the cases told NBC News.
The potential link was just one thread being pulled by officials Thursday, who were also searching a site in Texas a day after a man drove a pick-up truck flying an ISIS flag into New Orleans' busy Bourbon Street in the early hours of New Year's Day, killing 15 people and injuring at least 30 others.
The FBI is investigating it as a terrorist act. Authorities are still looking into "people of interest," New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told NBC News' "TODAY" show Thursday.
(Score: 4, Informative) by r1348 on Thursday January 02, @01:42PM (30 children)
No car bomb exploded in New Orleans.
A cybertruck exploded in Las Vegas, currently unclear if accidental, it was loaded with fireworks.
(Score: 0, Troll) by ikanreed on Thursday January 02, @02:56PM (13 children)
Did you... click the links? We had two cars explode. One from Teslas being ugly death traps, the other seems to be quite purposeful terrorism.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @03:08PM (10 children)
Where does anything say an automobile blew up in New Orleans?
(Score: 4, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday January 02, @04:17PM (9 children)
It's a Tesla "truck" that blew up in Nevada, right by the front entrance to Trump's hotel. It was full of cans of gasoline and mortars for big fireworks shows. The explosion was obviously on purpose.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 3, Disagree) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @04:31PM (8 children)
New Orleans is not in Nevada. 🙄
Now, I will ask that again...
(Score: 2, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday January 02, @04:42PM
It was initially reported by BBC and France 5, linked in to the claim that IEDs had also been found in the New Orleans vehicles. The BBC corrected their statement subsequently. I did not monitor France 5.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday January 02, @04:49PM (3 children)
After investigators reviewed all of the surveillance videos more closely it appears that the driver placed the IEDs himself and then changed clothes [6abc.com]. Those clothes were found in the vehicle, the sources said.
The FBI, which is leading the investigation, said weapons and potential improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were in Jabbar’s car [nbcnews.com] and in the French Quarter.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @08:14PM (2 children)
Yes, I am aware that they found explosive devices...
I am aware that there have been misleading headlines and AI-generated articles with absolute nonsense in them...
but no automobiles actually blew up in New Orleans.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday January 02, @08:31PM (1 child)
True - but what was being reported in the first few hours DID say that there had been an explosion.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @08:34PM
Yes. I know.
That is why I am trying to correct the record with actual facts instead of speculation, misinformation and hallucinations.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @08:18PM
I suppose I should have been more clear in my question...
I know people have incorrectly said things, incorrect headlines have been published, random speculation is rampant...
My question should have been more like, "is there any credible evidence that a vehicle blew up in New Orleans, or is that all just hallucinated nonsense?"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 02, @08:53PM (1 child)
Pay attention. I wasn't referring to the loser who murdered and maimed the people in "Narlins", I was referring to the Musk Nazitruck some idiot blew himself up in, in front of the Las Vegas Trump Hotel main entrance.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @09:07PM
Yes, I know which incident you were referring to, but I was SPECIFICALLY asking about New Orleans!! 🙄
It has been confirmed by the FBI that two IED-type bombs were found in New Orleans. Two, and only two have been confirmed.
Neither of those were detonated. No bombs exploded in New Orleans. No vehicles blew up in New Orleans.
If anyone has any citations, anything citing any actual evidence to the contrary on that point, please let us know...
(Score: 3, Touché) by Whoever on Thursday January 02, @03:40PM (1 child)
I suggest you get a new username: you clearly cannot read.
(Score: 3, Funny) by mcgrew on Thursday January 02, @04:35PM
Perhaps he hasn't had his coffee and can't find his glasses.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday January 02, @02:56PM (1 child)
The media source corrected its initial statement sometime later. Thanks for your comment.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hubie on Thursday January 02, @03:21PM
I updated the story title.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @03:31PM (4 children)
They loaded the bed of the "truck" with flammables (including camping fuel, not the apparently AI hallucinated "gaming fuel") and incendiaries, drove up and down the block for an hour (which is on video), then finally drove up right in front of the main doors to the hotel and parked... Then seconds later, the cargo blew up.
Accidentally??! 🙄
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @03:38PM
Here [foxtv.com] is an aftermath photo of the charred remains and remnants of the cargo in the bed of the Tesla.
(Score: 3, Touché) by VLM on Thursday January 02, @04:13PM (1 child)
In their defense, where I grew up, aside from the truck catching fire, that sounds like "the good ole boys having a July 4th weekend" and people are known to party pretty hard in vegas. Drive around looking for those Vegas streetwalkers, got your fireworks for new years, camping fuel to ... camp with, at least that's what I use mine for. Its a lot cheaper than propane if you use it more than four or five times and I think it burns hotter if you're into that kind of cooking. Probably a bad idea if you're into "re-heat cans of soup and stew" style of cooking.
The only real indication it was not "the good ole boys" is the lack of a couple cases of empty beer cans in the truck bed. They could have melted, I suppose.
I would strongly suspect that someone thinking a couple of bottle rockets will vaporize the hotel was FAR more likely to be mentally ill than a terrorist.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @11:51PM
When you have your truck bed loaded with all those 4th of July or New Years Eve fireworks and gallon cans of camping fuel, do you also then pull up in front of a hotel and shoot yourself right before or right after that cargo in the bed of your truck bursts into flames?
I do agree with you that unfortunately, the guy was likely mentally ill.
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Sunday January 12, @02:09AM
I wrote "currently unclear if accidental", which was the state of news when I wrote the comment. All that was known is that a cybertruck caught fire in from of the Trump hotel in Las Vegas, killing its occupant, and from the security footage it was clear it was loaded with fireworks.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday January 02, @05:23PM (7 children)
That's what's called an "IED". Otherwise know colloquially as a "bomb".
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 02, @08:36PM (6 children)
Or it's just somebody with fireworks in their truck going somewhere to shoot them off, and an accident happened?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 03, @02:33AM (4 children)
Good thing he accidentally shot himself before that accident happened!
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 03, @03:40AM (3 children)
Folks in the area were extremely lucky that he was either incompetent or just meant for it to go out with a bang when he self-murdered. Given his apparent background, I have a hard time believing this was a serious bombing attempt as even the most bare bones training on the subject would have led to the same components making a much bigger boom.
But, we'll see, he could just be that incompetent.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday January 03, @04:04AM (1 child)
I am not a conspiracy theorist, as fun as those may be.
The initial reports on the Vegas incident don't make a lot of sense. The corpse found in the truck was reportedly US Army Special Forces, shot himself with a Desert Eagle meme gun, and built an "IED" consisting largely of fireworks shells that a 1990s BBS kid would laugh at. The body of the Cybertruck channeled the "blast" upwards too, limiting the impact, leaving the door glass on the hotel a few feet away undamaged, and truck tires were still holding air.
This doesn't add up, and I expect this story to develop significantly.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 03, @04:17AM
Unfortunately, whatever answers do come, it's highly unlikely that it will be acceptable to the sorts that trade in conspiracy theories.
I do think that if this guy is who they say he is, there's no way that this was a serious attempt to hurt large numbers of people. Anybody with any knowledge of explosives at all would have built a more effective IED. I think the Oklahoma City Bombing is a good example. But, doing it that way isn't really possible any more due to changes in how the FBI keeps tabs on the relevant supplies.
That being said, he could very well be that stupid, or there could be some brain injury involved from combat related trauma, but we'll have to wait to see as there's very little to go on at the moment.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday January 06, @04:44AM
They released some messages from him, and it appears that it was indeed not so much a terrorist act as one that was intended to get a bunch of attention. Something in a similar vein to when people self-immolate in public places to raise awareness.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Friday January 03, @06:29PM
No, he set it all off and then shot himself in the head.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 03, @02:48AM
It's been reported now that the cybertruck driver shot himself right before the explosion.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/01/02/tesla-cybertruck-explosion-las-vegas/ [snopes.com]
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @02:29PM (6 children)
Is upset because the guy who plowed into the crowd was an American citizen and army veteran
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @03:42PM (3 children)
Nah...
He's more than brown enough for them to simply just hate him, regardless! 🙄
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 02, @06:25PM (2 children)
He's not only brown, but ARABIC!
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Friday January 03, @03:43AM (1 child)
It's rather inconvenient for a certain subset of the American public that Arabs are white.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday January 05, @07:10PM
No whiter than a Hispanic or Jew. The bigots hate anyone whose ancestry isn't European. The Jews and Arabs hate each other, both are sons of Abraham.
Only a fool gets between two fighting brothers.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday January 02, @03:42PM (1 child)
He was also born in a red state (TX) which should make him a good guy in their eyes.
Sadly, a car plowing into a crowd of people really is braking news.
People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 02, @06:56PM
Got to keep the news from going too fast.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @02:47PM (18 children)
There are few cities so strategically important as New Orleans and Las Vegas.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Thursday January 02, @03:02PM (10 children)
They're boomer recreational paradises, so for a psyop intended to influence boomers, yeah. Most other boomer paradises are seasonal or are individual events like the Superbowl.
So pretty narrowly targetted, yeah.
It's a stereotype that in mass casualty attacks the FBI was in contact before the attack. It would ruin their budget to prevent attacks, so not too many attacks get prevented.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @03:12PM (5 children)
Who said the FBI had any sort of knowledge or contact with the attacker beforehand?
After the attack, while investigating, they have worked backwards to find out the the attacker did X, Y and Z... That doesn't mean they knew any of that beforehand. 🙄
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday January 02, @04:01PM (3 children)
Me, because they usually do, that's why I called it a stereotype rather than citing a URL or source name.
It's early days. Give it time for various reports to come out. The perp is dead so there will be no trial so the whole thing will probably get memory-holed by next week, but maybe stories will come out anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @04:07PM (2 children)
It is easy to show that they might have had all the information beforehand, but you're in tin foil hat areas if you are arguing that they have all the pieces connected beforehand and know the time/place something is going to happen for someone who is not not on their radar.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Thursday January 02, @04:16PM (1 child)
I'd call it more the 9-11 factual record area than the tinfoil hat area.
The nice thing about conspiracy theories is if you're patient enough they all seem to eventually be proven true or forgotten. So, since this is an old one, it's almost certainly true.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 02, @08:08PM
The thing is, while true, most of the data can be explained by bureaucrats not wanting to take action that will disrupt their routine if they don't need to. And you can't prove that they need to. So they process the data and either file it or send it up one level...,to someone else who is also a bureaucrat.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Thursday January 02, @07:36PM
If you DO know beforehand, they must have 100s of people posting every hour crazy shit that looks like a precursor to bad taking actions. It would take probably today without optimization, a day to just get officials on that person... if there was just 1 person and not 100s to process and check in on.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 02, @06:30PM (3 children)
It would ruin their budget to prevent attacks
Yeah? And why would preventing attacks ruin their budget? Can you explain your thinking? It makes no sense to this old fool. It sounds like a stupid conspiracy theory to me.
If you got that thought from social media, congrats, you're Russia's and China's bitch.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday January 02, @07:02PM (2 children)
Consider the 911 attacks. If they had been thwarted without loss of life or significant property damage, Congress probably would have said "Great job! Looks like you're getting enough money." Instead the attacks happened. And the FBI, for example, increased its budget over the next three years from just over $5 billion per year to almost $8 billion per year.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Thursday January 02, @09:04PM (1 child)
They say "if" is a huge word. "probably" is just as big, and it's a lie; as if you have actually used carefully measured numbers and computed the probabilities.
Like the coffee cup my daughter gave me says, "Nice story, now show me the data." "Probably" proves absolutely nothing. It's a stupid wild ass guess.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 03, @02:10AM
Lie is also a huge word. I'll note here that the steepest upslope on that budget graph was the three years after 911.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday January 02, @06:57PM (3 children)
The Las Vegas one was apparently just to make a statement toward Trump and Musk. That's the only reason I can think of for them to use a cybertruck. The Trump hotel in Las Vegas was probably much easier to target than anything else (e.g. NYC).
New Orleans is just an easy target for a large crowd. It's a party town where Mardi Gras festivities are held. These people weren't trying to disable key American infrastructure. They were simply trying to terrorize people.
Without doing a Google search, I have no idea where Sandy Hook is, but I know the name because a tragic event happened there. The city doesn't have to be special for a terror attack to have an impact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @09:49PM (2 children)
It's turning out that the Las Vegas bomber was a Trump supporter and army vet - leading me to suspect the bombing was an attempt to keep the names Trump and Musk at the top of the news. How much damage was done there?
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @11:29PM
As far as I can tell from a cursory glance, essentially just whoever owned the Cyber "truck" thingy and rented it to the guy who blew it up, lost their "truck" and the guy who blew it up lost his own life, by his own hand...
...so seemingly, perhaps nothing of any real value was actually lost? 🤔
I mean, all human life has value, but the blowed-up guy seems to have made some poor decisions which have resulted in his own demise.
I guess we need to discern some supposed motive before deciding if he might be a Darwin award candidate? A disillusioned, cult-member Kool-Aid drinker?
If he legitimately had real mental health issues, then it is sad.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday January 03, @01:08AM
Hypothetically it could be argued that an increase in "terrorist" activity would provide an excuse for the introduction of more stringent laws or for an increased level of security to be introduced. Such things could be justified on the grounds of public safety, in much the same way that 'think of the children' is employed to counter the argument for personal use of strong encryption.
In turn this would be very useful if, for example, a government was about to introduce potentially unpopular policies. Having the ability to ban or restrict large gatherings is sometimes employed to help suppress opposition. Such tactics have been used in recent years in Russia, China and other countries.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday January 03, @04:13AM
The mistake you're making here is thinking that terrorism is about maximizing casualties or economic impact. It's not. The objective is to create fear. The best targets to create fear are poorly defended, names people know, and highly visible. New Orleans (in)famous street parties definitely check those boxes, and the Vegas strip is so iconic that we make video games about what it will look like a hundred years after a nuclear apocalypse.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday January 03, @04:34AM (1 child)
from the stand point of a terrorist attack Las Vegas and New Orleans are actually good targets when you remember that the purpose of terrorism is to frighten the average citizen.
The message that could be drawn from these two attacks is "your not safe anywhere". If that is what people come away from these thinking then the attacks would be considered successful.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday January 06, @04:46AM
It wasn't terrorism, it was a public awareness stunt. https://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-cybertruck-explosion-investigators-piece-suspects-final/story?id=117291682 [go.com] Which makes sense as somebody with his background could have done a lot more damage with those materials if he wanted to and probably would have chosen a different type of vehicle as well.
(Score: 5, Touché) by VLM on Thursday January 02, @03:09PM (1 child)
https://www.ktnv.com/news/cybertruck-explosion-outside-las-vegas-trump-hotel-treated-as-possible-act-of-terror [ktnv.com]
Really? Sometimes I think the AI puts hallucinations in their prompt responses just to see if the people are reading or not.
https://gfuel.com/ [gfuel.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_Fuel [wikipedia.org]
Its basically pre-workout (which is a whole nother scam) marketed to video gamers.
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday January 02, @06:13PM
>report from CNN
Well, there's the problem. This isn't 90s cnn.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Username on Thursday January 02, @06:09PM (5 children)
Doubtful this was really isis. Muhammed buying an isis flag off amazon doesn't put him on a list? Really? No questions about that? Probably some false flag shit to try and get the US into another war. I have no doubt we have to bomb Iran because of this. Even though they have nothing to do with isis.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Thursday January 02, @06:36PM
Probably some false flag shit to try and get the US into another war.
A tip of the hat to your conspiracy theory. Yeah, he's an American citizen, but he looks Arabic and has an Arabic name, he was stationed at the army base that another Arab shot up while he was stationed there, and you're convinced it's a false flag?
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 02, @08:16PM (3 children)
If it was ISIS, they're doing a lousy job. He may have been a sympathizer, and had a few friends in the plot with him. But it was a screwy plot. I suppose it might technically be terrorism, of a rather incompetent kind.
The thing is, I've go no idea why he did this. What was he supposed to be seen as in favor of or against? Trump? Musk? Israel? Hamas? I've no idea. That's really incompetent.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday January 03, @02:22PM (2 children)
The goal was to get Americans to hate Muslims. Who would that benefit? A country in the middle east that isn't Islamic. That's what I think.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday January 03, @02:44PM (1 child)
It's a guess. It isn't implausible, but I see no reason to put much belief behind it. Even if that's the goal, it's incompetent, and there are lots of other plausible guesses.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Username on Friday January 03, @05:23PM
All I know is that stupid people make the best patsies.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @08:30PM
Apparently the latest updates from the police in Las Vegas say that the apparent perpetrator, Matthew Alan Livelsberger, shot himself before the Tesla-mobile blew up.
CNN [youtube.com]
FOX [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday January 02, @08:40PM
FBI official reveals new details about the New Orleans attack [youtu.be]