New Orleans attack: FBI believes suspect acted alone in deadly rampage

The FBI said on Thursday that it now believed the suspect acted alone in the truck attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day that killed 15 and injured dozens more when a man drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd celebrating on busy Bourbon Street.

The chief suspect, 42-year-old US citizen Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was killed in the attack as he shot at police and was shot to death when law enforcement returned fire.

The federal agency also announced that it had found no definitive link between the New Orleans tragedy and

the explosion that occurred later on Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a hotel owned by Donald Trump in Las Vegas, which resulted in one fatality.

Over the last 24 hours there had been contradictory reports on whether the suspect in New Orleans had associates in the planning or execution of the attack, while the authorities also said they were looking into any possible connections between the New Orleans and the Las Vegas incidents, before updating the public later on Thursday on both fronts.

Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, said late on Thursday morning that the evidence had now shown that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was solely responsible for the New Orleans attack and professed allegiance to the Islamic State.

Earlier, senior FBI figures and the attorney general of Louisiana had said they believed “known associates” and “multiple people” were probably involved.

The attack took place just after 3am local time on Wednesday morning in the French Quarter of New Orleans, which was crowded with people celebrating the new year.

Jabbar, from Houston, Texas, drove a rented white pickup truck between the 100 and 400 blocks of Bourbon Street, crashing into revelers and mowing many down, then shooting from the truck, including hitting two police officers before he was killed.

Jabbar, who served in the US army for 13 years, was wearing body armor and a helmet, according to a law enforcement bulletin, and was displaying an Islamic State flag mounted on a pipe in the bed of the vehicle. The FBI has said that it is investigating the attack as an “act of terrorism”.

Investigators found guns and what appeared to be improvised explosive devices in the vehicle, as well as elsewhere in the city’s French Quarter.

Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, said that the explosive devices associated with the attack appear to have been manufactured at a rented Airbnb in New Orleans that she said was rented out “for that purpose”.

In addition, a house fire occurred on Wednesday morning “that was connected to this event where we believe the IEDs were being made” Murrill added.

On Thursday morning, the New Orleans police superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, stated on NBC’s Today show that authorities were investigating “people of interest” related to Wednesday’s attack.

“We have people of interest, they are not people who are suspects at this time” Kirkpatrick said, adding “The FBI is tracking down everybody.”

The vehicles involved in the attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas were both rented using the popular car-sharing app Turo and the suspects in both incidents, who were both killed, had been or where in the military, leading to questions being asked, including by Joe Biden, about whether the events were connected, which the authorities then scotched later on Thursday.

A spokesperson for Turo stated that they were cooperating with law enforcement. The company also said that “do not believe that either renter … had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat”.

The city of New Orleans continued to reel from the attack, investigators continue to actively search for answers and potential accomplices.

Later on Thursday afternoon, the Sugar Bowl, a college football playoff quarter-final, is scheduled to take place in New Orleans. The event, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, had been postponed by one day due to the New Year’s Day attack.

Kirkpatrick said the event would have Super Bowl-level security, with collaboration from local, federal and military partners for safety.

“We are going to have absolutely hundreds of officers and staff lining our streets, lining Bourbon Street, lining the French Quarter,” Kirkpatrick said. “We are staffing up at the same level if not more so than we were prepared for Super Bowl.

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