NEW ORLEANS: A US army veteran with an\u00a0Islamic State\u00a0flag and “hellbent” on carnage steered a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year revelers in New Orleans on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, officials said.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0FBI\u00a0identified the attacker as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen from\u00a0Texas\u00a0and an Army veteran. He appeared to have been a real estate agent working in Houston and had served as an IT specialist in the military.<\/p>\n
The attack injured about 30 other people, including two police officers wounded by gunfire from the suspect.<\/p>\n
The victims included the mother of a 4-year-old who had just moved into a new apartment after getting a promotion at work, a New York financial employee and accomplished student-athlete who was visiting home for the holidays and an 18-year-old aspiring nurse from Mississippi.<\/p>\n
Police and political leaders vowed to capture any accomplices.<\/p>\n
Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick described Jabbar as a “terrorist,” while the FBI said “an ISIS flag was located in the vehicle,” using another name for the Islamic State armed group.<\/p>\n
“The FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organisations,” the agency said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Officials said they were searching for accomplices but gave few details.<\/p>\n
Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick described Jabbar as a “terrorist,” while the FBI said “an ISIS flag was located in the vehicle,” using another name for the Islamic State armed group.<\/p>\n
“The FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organisations,” the agency said in a statement.<\/p>\n
US President\u00a0Joe Bide, describing the attack as “despicable,” said that hours before Jabbar had posted videos online “indicating that he was inspired by ISIS.”<\/p>\n
Officials said a manhunt was underway, with FBI agent Alethea Duncan warning that authorities “do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible.”<\/p>\n
“We’re hunting some bad people down,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said.<\/p>\n
An FBI spokesman told AFP that 15 people had been killed, citing the New Orleans coroner’s office.<\/p>\n
Police said the incident began around 3:15 am (0915 GMT) in the heart of the French Quarter, which was packed with people celebrating the start of 2025.<\/p>\n
The suspect drove a white Ford F-150 electric pickup into a group of pedestrians, then exited and was killed in a shoutout with police — two of whom were wounded. Two homemade bombs were found and neutralised, the FBI said.<\/p>\n
“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could,” Kirkpatrick told reporters.<\/p>\n
Driving at “very high speed” and in a “very intentional” manner, “he was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said.<\/p>\n
The wounded officers were in stable condition and Kirkpatrick said they would recover.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon said Jabbar had served in the army as a human resources specialist and an IT specialist from 2007 to 2015, and then in the army reserve until 2020.<\/p>\n
He deployed to\u00a0Afghanista\u00a0from February 2009 until January 2010, an army spokesperson said, adding that he held the rank of Staff Sergeant at the end of his service.<\/p>\n
Biden said that law enforcement were also probing any possible links between the attack and the explosion later Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a hotel partly owned by US President-elect Donald Trump in Las Vegas that killed one person.<\/p>\n
“Thus far, there’s nothing to report on that score,” he said, as police in Las Vegas said they believed it was an “isolated” incident.<\/p>\n
Trump immediately linked the New Orleans attack to illegal immigration, giving no evidence, in a statement made before authorities announced the suspect was American.<\/p>\n
NEW ORLEANS: A US army veteran with an\u00a0Islamic State\u00a0flag and “hellbent” on carnage steered a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year revelers in New Orleans on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, officials said. The\u00a0FBI\u00a0identified the attacker as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen from\u00a0Texas\u00a0and an Army veteran. He appeared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":61130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25390],"class_list":["post-61127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-new-orleans-crowd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61131,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61127\/revisions\/61131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}