The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint intelligence bulletin Thursday warning the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies about copycats seeking to imitate this week’s deadly shooting and shooting attack in New Orleans, ABC News reported.
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.
The bulletin says ISIS — which New Orleans suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar pledged allegiance to before the New Orleans bombing, according to FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia — has been promoting the use of vehicles as weapons of terrorism since 2014.
Sources told ABC News that ISIS has increased calls for its supporters to launch low-tech mass casualty attacks, particularly in recent months. Israel-Hamas conflict It started in October 2023.
The bulletin offered advice to law enforcement on the danger signs of attacks to look out for, including pre-operational surveillance and the use of fraudulent identity documents or vehicle rental credit.
A person takes a picture of a memorial to the victims of the deadly truck attack on Bourbon Street after the area reopened on January 2, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Jack Brook/AP
The newsletter 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.
FBI agents and local law enforcement in the ongoing investigation into the New Year’s Day bombing on Bourbon Street recovered a residence linked to the suspect in Houston, Texas on Thursday, sources confirmed to ABC News.
The elements found are also being referred to as “precursor chemicals” by agents in the field, the sources said. They were found during the execution of a search warrant at Jabbar’s last known residence in the small community of Greenspoint, north of Houston.
Authorities no longer believe there are any other suspects involved in the New Year’s Eve truck attack that killed 14 people and injured 35 others, the FBI said Thursday.
Sixteen people remain hospitalized at the University of New Orleans Medical Center, including eight in intensive care. The death toll will not rise above 14, Dr. Jeffrey Elder of the University of New Orleans Medical Center told ABC News Live on Thursday.
After investigators reviewed all of the surveillance video, it appears that Jabbar — a 42-year-old Army veteran and US-born Texas citizen who also died in the attack — planted the explosives in the area himself and then changed clothes, several times. law enforcement sources told ABC News.
The FBI is still investigating whether there were people Jabbar spoke to or exchanged messages with before the attack early Wednesday, but no one was available to help, sources said.
New Orleans truck attack location
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“Federal law enforcement and the intelligence community are actively investigating all foreign or domestic contacts that may be related to the attack,” President Joe Biden said Thursday.
The FBI’s Raia called the attack a deliberate “act of terrorism” but said there was no additional threat to the public.
The FBI released new surveillance images of Jabbar in New Orleans just over an hour before the attack, showing the suspect walking down Dauphine Street near Governor Nicholls Street just after 2 a.m., wearing a long light brown coat, jeans and a brown dress. shoes
The FBI also released a photo of one of the coolers containing an explosive device that Jabbar planted near the intersection of Bourbon and Orleans streets.
Surveillance footage showed Jabbar planting two improvised explosive devices in coolers in the Bourbon Street area, Raia said. The truck had a remote detonator to set off both devices, Biden said.
“Those are the only two devices that we were able to recover that were functional – both devices were made safe at the scene,” he said.
Jabbar drove from Houston to New Orleans on Tuesday evening and posted several videos online “pleading for ISIS,” and Raia said he had joined ISIS earlier this summer.
Jabbar was “keen to kill as many people as possible” and drove a truck around a parked police car as a barricade to hit pedestrians, driving onto the sidewalk.
The suspect mowed down dozens of people in a three-block stretch of the world-famous street as he fired into the crowd, police said.
Security personnel patrol Bourbon Street after it reopened for the 2025 Sugar Bowl game, one day after a man launched a vehicle attack during New Year’s celebrations, in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 2, 2025.
Octavio Jones/Reuters
Jabbar exited the damaged vehicle armed with an assault rifle and fired at the police, law enforcement said. He was also armed with a gun, sources told ABC News.
The agents opened fire, killing Jabbar. At least two officers were injured, one was shot and the other officer was hit by the truck, authorities said.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the security bollards were not working because they were in the process of being replaced for next month’s Super Bowl.
Law enforcement cleared and reopened Bourbon Street Thursday as the investigation continued. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said officials were “confident” the area could be reopened to the public by 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.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry compared the ongoing investigation Thursday to a puzzle.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, has been identified as the suspect in a New Year’s Day 2025 attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans that killed at least 15 people.
FBI
More than 400 tips have been submitted and investigators are searching Jabbar’s laptops and phones, Raia said. More than 1,000 law enforcement officers are “pouring in tons of data, video, surveillance, interviews, looking for every possible tip,” Landry said.
Authorities have executed search warrants in New Orleans and outside of Louisiana, the FBI’s New Orleans office said.
There is no apparent direct link between the New Orleans attack and Wednesday’s explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, which is also being investigated as a possible act of terror, the FBI’s Rai said Thursday.
Biden said Thursday that investigators “so far have found no evidence of that connection — I’ve instructed them to keep looking.”
The driver of the Las Vegas was killed and seven bystanders suffered minor injuries, authorities said. The cause of the incident remains under investigation, but investigators told ABC News they believe it was “intentional.”
The Cybertruck was rented through the Turo app, as was the truck used in the New Orleans attack, sources told ABC News.
The driver of the Cybertruck had a background in special operations in the Army, but there is no evidence that he and the New Orleans suspect knew each other, according to officials.
