Attacker with ISIS Flag Drives Truck into New Orleans Crowd, Killing 15

The Washington Post / Jesse Dougherty, Maria Sacchetti, Mark Berman

13:41 JST, January 2, 2025

NEW ORLEANS – A man plowed a pickup bearing an Islamic State flag into revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans early Wednesday morning, killing at least 15 people and injuring many others in a grisly terrorist attack, officials said.

The FBI identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old American citizen and Army veteran born in Texas. After ramming through crowds of people who had been celebrating New Year’s Eve just hours earlier, he crashed the truck and got into a shootout with responding officers, authorities said. He was pronounced dead soon after, and authorities warned that they believed others had a hand in the attack.

“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” Alethea Duncan, FBI assistant special agent in charge in New Orleans, said at a news briefing Wednesday afternoon. “We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates.”

The FBI said that in addition to the Islamic State flag, they found weapons and a potential improvised explosive device in the attacker’s truck, which appeared to be a rented Ford. Other explosive devices were located elsewhere in the French Quarter, the FBI said, and bomb technicians were deployed to examine all of them.

The eruption of violence marked a dreadful start to the new year for New Orleans, a city known for public revelry and celebration that was plunged into a state of chaos, horror and mourning. Bourbon Street, famed for its central place in the city’s tourism industry and nightlife, was transformed into an expansive crime scene strewn with brutalized bodies. College football’s Sugar Bowl, which had been scheduled for Wednesday night, was pushed back a day.

Officials faced mounting questions about the security measures they had in place for a city that frequently draws throngs of tourists and hosts large public gatherings, major games and events – including the Super Bowl next month.

New Orleans is not alone in facing a deadly attack in which a speeding vehicle was wielded as a weapon. Last month, a car sped into families at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing at least five people and injuring more than 200 others. Previous attacks have also mowed people down on a New York bike path, on a Las Vegas sidewalk, on a French promenade and at a college homecoming parade in Oklahoma.

According to experts, bollards – or posts placed to block vehicles from accessing certain spaces – can be a useful tool to prevent attackers from driving into pedestrians and crowds. But it can be hard to stop every attacker from targeting every large gathering, experts said.

In New Orleans, the bollards meant to keep vehicles off Bourbon Street were not up on New Year’s Eve because they were being replaced ahead of the Super Bowl, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said during the afternoon news briefing.

The bollards had been installed about 10 years ago, Cantrell said, but soon began to malfunction, so they were being replaced as part of the infrastructure work leading up to the Super Bowl on Feb. 9.

Authorities appeared to bristle during the briefing at some of the questions they faced about the attack and the security measures. Anne Kirkpatrick, the New Orleans police superintendent, said there were security protocols in place, describing how police used patrol cars and other barriers instead of bollards to block roads.

“We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it,” Kirkpatrick said.

When police faced follow-up questions about the security plan and why officials had seemingly not prepared for someone driving onto the sidewalk, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) stepped in and pledged that officials would “be transparent” and address “defects in this system.”

“We’re going to fix it,” Landry said. “It is going to be a top priority as we go into the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, and the solution that we’re going to come up with is going to be a permanent one.”

The city’s next major sporting event was delayed less than 24 hours. The Sugar Bowl, which this year features a College Football Playoff game between the University of Georgia and the University of Notre Dame, was pushed to Thursday afternoon. Landry was asked what gave him confidence that it would be safe by then.

“I’ll be there,” Landry said, patting the lectern. He walked away and did not answer a follow-up question.

Speaking from Camp David late Wednesday evening, President Joe Biden decried the “despicable attack” in New Orleans and pledged that the country would stand with the families of victims, the people who were injured and residents of the city.

Biden said the FBI had told him that “mere hours before the attack,” the assailant posted videos to social media suggesting the Islamic State had inspired him to kill.

Details began to emerge Wednesday about Jabbar’s life. He served on active duty in the Army between 2007 and 2015 as a human resource specialist and information technology specialist, then continued his IT career in the Army Reserve from 2015 until 2020, leaving as a staff sergeant, military officials said. He deployed to Afghanistan between February 2009 and January 2010.

His two military jobs, which were not combat-related, do not indicate any specialized weapon or explosive experience.

Jabbar appears to have lived most recently in Houston, where officials said they were conducting unspecified “law enforcement activity” Wednesday.

In a neighborhood in north Houston, a neighbor of Jabbar’s ex-wife said FBI agents had been to her home earlier in the day. Dwayne Marsh, who is married to Jabbar’s ex-wife, said she and Jabbar had two daughters, ages 14 and 20. Marsh said Jabbar had converted to Islam, but he did not specify when and declined to comment further.

Grant Savoy, a former high school classmate of Jabbar’s in Texas, expressed shock about the attack, saying Jabbar had been “a regular dude” and “a quiet guy” in those days.

State records show that a man with Jabbar’s name was a licensed real estate sales agent in Texas between 2019 and 2023. His license expired that year, according to an online database with the Texas Real Estate Commission.

In a 2020 YouTube video, which has since been taken down, a man who gives his name as Shamsud-Din Jabbar introduced himself as a property manager and real estate salesman. He described being born and raised in Beaumont, a southeastern Texas city of more than 100,000 people off of Interstate 10, which runs east to New Orleans.

“I’ve been here all my life,” he said in the video. He also provided details about military service that matched the records released by the Pentagon on Wednesday.

In the military, he said in the video, “I learned the meaning of great service and what it means to be responsive and take everything seriously.”

Federal court records reviewed by The Washington Post show a man identified as Shamsuddin or Shamuddin Bahar Jabbar saying that he left active-duty service after being caught in November 2014 driving while intoxicated on a U.S. Army base.

Authorities filed criminal charges against him in February 2015 and said Jabbar had been driving drunk on the Fort Bragg Military Reservation in North Carolina, an Army base that has since been renamed Fort Liberty.

Jabbar pleaded guilty to the petty misdemeanor charge in May 2015, paid $210 in fines and assessments, and was sentenced to one year probation, according to records in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

While authorities said they did not believe that Jabbar was working alone in the New Orleans attack, investigators have not specified why they think that or who else might have been involved.

Authorities are not eliminating any possibility in the investigation, including that the driver may have had an accomplice or accomplices. According to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation, because there were so many explosive devices found Wednesday, it is logical for officials to examine the possibility that the attacker did not act alone.

A different law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that had not been made public, said a cooler was found inside Jabbar’s truck containing an improvised explosive device that was neutralized by the bomb squad.

Two other devices, also ensconced in coolers, were found nearby, the official said. These devices all contained nails, the official added, suggesting a desire to inflict greater carnage by maiming and killing more victims.

Investigators are also examining surveillance footage that appears to show at least three men and one woman placing possible explosives at various locations in the French Quarter prior to the attack, the official said. But the investigation is in the early stages, and authorities’ understanding of what happened could change quickly.

The official said investigators believe that after crashing the truck, Jabbar emerged wearing body armor and camouflage fatigues, and armed with a rifle.

Police said they responded to the crash scene shortly after 3:15 a.m. on Wednesday.

“This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” Kirkpatrick, the police superintendent, told reporters early Wednesday, and was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”

When the truck came to a stop, three officers exchanged fire with the attacker, police said. Two officers were wounded in the shootout and were taken to a local hospital in stable condition, police said.

Kirkpatrick said that officers “stood strong, they did not run, they did kill the terrorist.”

The attack left people across the area shaken by what they saw. Andrew Tokarski, 33, had ducked back inside a club on Bourbon Street to retrieve his cellphone early Wednesday when staffers ordered people to stay inside because of an accident. Tokarski said that when the club’s staff let people leave, they warned them not to look to their right.

“Well, naturally, everyone’s going to look right,” Tokarski said. “It’s just human nature. So you look right. And there’s a body.”

He saw one body covered with a bag, then another. Then he saw blood on the ground.

“You had a whole bunch of people screaming and crying,” Tokarski said.