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The New Year's Day attack in New Orleans was an “act of terrorism” that was not linked to the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in Las Vegas just hours later, according to FBI assessments.
While investigating New Orleans attack The FBI said the attack was still in its early stages, and the alleged perpetrator, US Army veteran Shams al-Din Jabbar, was believed to have acted alone.
“This was work terrorism. “It was a malicious and premeditated act,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raya said Thursday. “We are confident at this point that there are no accomplices (sic).”
Raya added that “at this point, there is no specific connection between the attack here in New Orleans and the attack that occurred in Las Vegas,” although he said the FBI is not ruling anything out.
14 people were killed and 35 others injured when a man drove a pickup truck into a large crowd and opened fire in the heart of New Orleans in the early hours of New Year's Day.
The FBI said an ISIS flag was found on the truck, and the agency was investigating the suspect's possible ties to terrorist organizations. Jabbar was killed in an exchange of fire with the police, bringing the death toll to 15.
Raya said two “working” explosive devices were later found in coolers in the heart of the city's historic French Quarter. He added that the safety of the explosive devices had been “confirmed” at the scene.
Three phones and two laptops linked to Jabbar were recovered from the searches, and authorities are examining them for possible leads.
Investigators said they have begun to piece together a timeline of the attack. Jabbar had picked up the rented Ford F-150 pickup truck in Houston, Texas, on December 30, then headed east to New Orleans the next day.
In videos posted on Facebook, Jabbar declared his support for ISIS and said he originally planned to target family and friends, but “was concerned that the headlines would not focus on the war between believers and infidels,” Raya said.
The FBI added that the attacker claimed to have joined ISIS over the summer and issued a will.
A few hours after the New Orleans attack, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday evening that authorities were investigating whether the matter was related to the attack that occurred in New Orleans.
Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas, was a US Army veteran who worked at consulting firm Deloitte, where he had a “staff-level role” since 2021, the company said on Thursday.
She added: “We are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing everything we can to assist the authorities in their investigations.”
The army said that Jabbar worked as a specialist in human resources and information technology between 2007 and 2020. He was deployed to Afghanistan between February 2009 and January 2010.
The Army also confirmed that the driver of the cyber truck that exploded in Las Vegas, Matthew Alan Livelsperger, was a serving U.S. soldier. At the time of his death, the sergeant was assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and was on approved leave.
Levelsberger began his military career in 2006 and served on active duty until 2011 before transferring to the National Guard, where he served for about a year. After a short stint in the Army Reserve, he returned to active duty in late 2012.
The FBI said Thursday it was searching a Colorado Springs home believed to be connected to the Las Vegas bombing.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
