Investigators are looking for clues about the path of radicalization of the attacker from New Orleans By Reuters

By Jonathan Landay and Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As investigators learn more about the man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State and killed 14 people with a truck on New Year’s Day in New Orleans, a key question remains: How did a veteran and former corporate employee become radicalized?

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said Thursday that videos made by Shamsud-Din Jabbar shortly before the attack show the 42-year-old Texan supports Islamic State, claims to have joined the militant group before last summer and believes in a “war between believers and unbelievers.”

While the FBI investigated his “path to radicalization,” evidence gathered since the attack showed Jabbar was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” Raia said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

Jabbar, who authorities said acted alone, was killed in a shootout with police.

His half-brother, Abdur Jabbar, said in an interview that Jabbar, who worked for the auditing firm Deloitte, left Islam in his 20s or 30s but recently renewed his faith.

Abdur Jabbar told Reuters in Beaumont, Texas, where Jabbar was born and raised, that he had no idea when his half-brother became radicalized.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated terrorism cases and is a member of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ advisory council, said Jabbar did not fit the typical profile of those radicalized by the Islamic State.

Jabbar served 10 years in the U.S. military and was in his 40s, Soufan noted, explaining that people who fall victim to Islamic State recruitment tend to be much younger.

“This is a guy who … went from being a patriot to becoming an ISIS terrorist,” Soufan said.

The attackers responsible for the string of deadly attacks claim ties to Islamic State and other jihadist groups.

They include the sole survivor of an Islamist squad that killed 130 people across Paris in 2015, a man who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, and a man who drove a truck into a crowded bike path in New York in 2017. City, killing eight people.

Some attacks, such as those in Paris in 2015, were carried out by trained operatives of the Islamic State. But investigators found no evidence of a direct role for that terrorist group in others.

ONLINE EMPLOYMENT

It is still unclear what contact Jabbar may have had with overseas extremist groups.

U.S. officials and other experts say Islamic State has done most of its recruiting in online chat rooms and encrypted communications apps since losing the “caliphate” it overran in 2014 in Iraq and Syria to a U.S.-led military coalition.

Even as the coalition continues to attack the rest of the group, the Islamic State has stepped up operations in Syria, while its affiliates based in Afghanistan and Africa have continued to recruit, expand their networks and inspire attacks.

US officials say Islamic State has used the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza to fuel its recruitment drive.

Nate Snyder, a former US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counterterrorism official, said both international and US extremist groups follow a similar game to attract new recruits.

Groups use social media to get their messages across and then move discussions to encrypted apps like Telegram, which could evolve into one-on-one conversations, Snyder said.

“That’s when people feel like they’re part of the community,” said Snyder, who left DHS in December to join the race for Democratic National Committee chairman.

Recruits could take direct orders or self-radicalize to take action, Snyder said.

Individuals vulnerable to recruitment “may have lost their jobs, may have had a mental crisis, may have just decided that no matter how hard they try, they never belong,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat who led a UN team tracking Islamic State. and Al Qaeda.

The Islamic State’s main appeal is its determination to establish a Sunni Muslim “caliphate” ruled by Islamic law, unlike the Taliban who “sold out to Afghan nationalism” or Al Qaeda whose members cooperated with Iranian Shiite Muslims. lead the government, he said.

“The people who carry out these attacks may never have met someone who is a member of ISIS in their lives,” said Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser to the Countering Extremism Project, a policy and research organization. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t carry out an ISIS-inspired attack.”

Driving cars into crowds or staging stabbings “are unsophisticated, very low-budget attacks (that) are almost impossible to defend against,” he continued. “If you are determined enough to kill the unsuspecting public, you will be able to do it.”