New Orleans attack latest: Authorities probe attacker’s ‘radicalization’ process

Authorities investigating the suspect 14 dead truck attack and dozens injured in New Orleans on New Year’s Day are being investigated when, where and how his alleged “radicalization” happened, a local official said Friday.

Shamsud-Din JabbarThe 42-year-old Army veteran and US-born Texas citizen posted several videos online in the hours before the Bourbon Street attack “pleading for ISIS” and mentioning that he had joined ISIS earlier this summer, according to the FBI.

On Friday, Jabbar’s half-brother told ABC News the suspect In 2023 he traveled to Egypt for about a month, telling his family he was going because it was “cheap and beautiful.”

Jabbar’s foreign trip is part of an ongoing investigation, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

Investigators are working to determine what he did on his trip to Egypt, why he went and who he associated with while there, multiple sources said. Critical to the test is whether he was radicalized before the trip or whether the trip marked the beginning of radicalization.

“The most important next phase of the investigation is to find out how this radicalization happened and how it happened on that trip,” Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams told ABC News.

Jabbar was killed in the middle of Wednesday’s attack in New Orleans after he drove a pickup truck onto a sidewalk and around a parked police car as a barricade. Plow into pedestrians in a three-block stretch of Bourbon Street, police said.

Jabbar exited the damaged vehicle armed with an assault rifle and fired at the police, law enforcement said. The officers opened fire and killed him.

Officials said the first 24 hours after the raid were occupied by a feverish effort to find out whether there were more suspects or whether Jabbar had worked with accomplices.

Since Thursday, investigators have been piecing together the events that led to his path to radicalization and the decision to attack Calle Borboi.

Two US officials told ABC on Friday that while it is still very early in the investigation, there is evidence at this point that Jabbar was in contact with a direct representative of ISIS.

Two days after the attack, ISIS has not claimed responsibility, officials said.

However, investigators are still working through his three phones and two laptops and examining his travel history.

In another update Friday, authorities revealed that Jabbar started a small fire in the New Orleans hallway he rented on Mandeville Street, “using accelerants strategically placed throughout the home in an effort to destroy it and other evidence of his crime.” “According to an update from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

However, after Jabbar left the residence, the fire broke out before spreading to other rooms. By the time the New Orleans Fire Department arrived, the fire was burning, and investigators were able to recover evidence, including traces of bomb-making material and a privately made device suspected to be a rifle silencer.”

As for the explosives, the FBI has said it believes Jabbar wanted to use a transmitter later found in the truck to set off the devices in the Bourbon Street attack.

The transmitter, along with two firearms connected to Jabbar, were being transported to an FBI lab for additional testing, officials said.

Before the deadly break-in, surveillance footage showed Jabbar planting two improvised explosive devices in coolers in the Bourbon Street area, investigators said. He had a remote detonator in the truck to set off both devices, but both were safe, authorities said.

Inside one of the coolers, investigators found a device consisting of a steel pipe, nails and a relatively rare explosive chemical, a senior law enforcement official told ABC News on Friday. The remote detonation capability apparently failed, the official said.

NBC News was the first to report on the rare chemical.

A search of Jabbar’s Houston home also turned up bomb-making materials, sources confirmed to ABC News on Thursday. The items found are also being referred to as “precursor chemicals” by agents in the field, the sources said.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint intelligence bulletin warning the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies about potential copycats, ABC News has learned.

The bulletin was carefully sent out to sensitize law enforcement across the country to be on the lookout for any activity that points to the use of vehicles as a method of causing mass casualty, sources told ABC News.

“Federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and law enforcement officials and private sector security partners to be on the lookout for copycat or retaliatory attacks following this attack and other fatal vehicle strike incidents around the world.” the bulletin said.

The bulletin says that ISIS has been promoting the use of vehicles as a weapon of terrorism since 2014.

ISIS has increased calls for its supporters to launch low-tech attacks in recent months, sources told ABC News. the recent Israel-Hamas conflict It started in October 2023.

The bulletin said Jabbar was the inspiration for ISIS but there is no evidence of conspirators. A senior law enforcement official told ABC News that ISIS has not yet claimed responsibility for the New Orleans attack.

“Law enforcement should be aware that in many cases attackers have used secondary weapons to attack vehicles and may continue to attack with verbal weapons, firearms or IEDs after stopping the vehicle,” the bulletin said. The tactic could be “attractive” to foreign terrorist organizations and other actors because of its low complexity threshold, he warned.

A New York Police Department news bulletin obtained by ABC News noted that ISIS supporters celebrated the attack online. Violent extremists, the bulletin says, “continue to see densely populated crosswalks, parades, mass gatherings and other outdoor events along the streets, especially during the holidays, as vulnerable targets of opportunity.”

“This persistent threat underscores the criticality of pre-prepared self-blockers and the deployment of other effectively configured countermeasures including heavy blocks, barriers and bollards,” he added.

Law enforcement Bourbon Street was cleared and reopened Thursday as the investigation continued. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said officials were “confident” about opening the field to the public Thursday evening ahead of the Sugar Bowl, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday but was postponed after the attack.

“I want to reassure the public that the city of New Orleans is not only ready for today’s game day, but we are ready to continue hosting large-scale events in our city,” he said. “Our hearts and prayers continue to go out to the families of the victims,” ​​Cantrell added.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to New Orleans on Monday to meet with family and community members, the White House said. Biden said he has spoken with the victims’ families on Friday.

There is no apparent direct link between the New Orleans attack and Wednesday’s Tesla Cybertruck explosion Outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, this is also being investigated as a possible act of terror, the FBI said Thursday.