A 42-year-old consultant from Texas named Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove through crowds of New Orleans revelers as they celebrated the start of 2025 — flying an ISIS flag on the hook of his rental truck, killing 14 and injuring 30 more.
On the 350-mile drive from Houston to the Big Easy, Jabbar took selfie videos declaring his allegiance to ISIS and saying he initially planned to kill his friends and family but decided to attack innocent members of the public to gain more attention. what he called “a war between believers and unbelievers,” according to the FBI.
He was a US Army veteran and had a lucrative job at a major consulting firm, but he brought a pair of IEDs and two firearms with him to attack civilians – allegedly radicalized in just a few weeks. And authorities are warning of similar lone wolf attacks and how deadly they can be, as New Orleans officials work to beef up security following the attack on its iconic, pedestrianized Bourbon Street.
“ISIS and others are back,” warned James Jay Carafano, a national security and foreign policy expert, in a recent Fox News commentary. “Biden’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan has reignited hope that America really is the paper tiger Osama Bin Laden claimed we were.”
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The FBI has released surveillance photos showing Shamsud-Din Jabbar an hour before he drove the truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans, early on January 1, 2025. (Federal Bureau of Investigation via AP)
Although the shockingly violent group’s “territorial caliphate” was destroyed during the first Trump administration, its propagandists continue to encourage and radicalize would-be terrorists. Jabbar stated in one of his videos that he “joined ISIS before this summer,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia told reporters at a news briefing.
“The threats from international terrorism, domestic terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism are complex and persistent — and notably, they have all increased simultaneously,” Raia said. “We constantly face threats from foreign terrorist organizations, violent extremists across the ideological spectrum, and criminal actors who aim to bring violence to the United States.”
A black flag with white lettering lies on the ground rolled up behind a pickup truck that a man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing and injuring several people, early Wednesday morning, Jan. 1, 2025. The FBI said they recovered the group’s flag from the vehicle The Islamic State, which is black with white letters. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Jabbar traveled to Cairo, Egypt from June 22 to July 3, 2023 and then returned to the US. In a separate trip on July 10, 2023, he traveled to Ontario, Canada, and returned to the US a few days later, the FBI said during a news conference. It was not clear whether the visit was related to the attack, but Raia said the bureau was investigating whether Jabbar had associates in the U.S. or abroad.
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Investigators said they are still looking into how and why Jabbar became radicalized. In an interview for “60 minutes” Over the weekend, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he believed the killer was inspired by ISIS content he found online.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the suspect in the New Orleans attack, is seen in this social media image, released in November 2013, at Fort Johnson (formerly Fort Polk), Louisiana, USA (1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division via Facebook via REUTERS)
“[Jabbar] It appears to be inspired — from afar — by ISIS, and that is, in many ways, the most challenging type of terrorist threat that we face,” Wray told interviewer Scott Pelley. “You’re talking about these types of guys, who radicalize not in in years rather than weeks, and whose method of attack is still very lethal, but rather crude. And if you think about that old saying about connecting the dots, there aren’t many dots to connect. And there is very little time to connect them.”
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Wray warns that lone wolf attacks are a top priority for the FBI and began warning about the increased threat more than a year ago.
The New York Times noted earlier this month that the way Jabbar flew his flag, from a trailer hitch on the back of his rented Ford F-150 EV, was the same as the ISIS propaganda poster he discovered Daily Mail, in 2017.
Investigators continue to block Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2024, following a New Year’s Eve attack. (Audrey Conklin/Fox News Digital)
The image, which shows an SUV driving over a pile of skulls in front of an urban backdrop, includes the caption “Run over them without mercy,” as written in English. That year there were terrorist attacks by vehicles in London, New York CityJerusalem, Barcelona and elsewhere.
A year earlier, an ISIS-inspired terrorist drove a truck into Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, France, killing 84 people.
Older terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, focused on well-planned attacks on a global scale, such as on September 11, 2001, the earlier attack on the World Trade Center with a car bomb in 1993, according to Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector. ISIS has promoted a shift towards small but brutal attacks that can be carried out anywhere around the world.
“You didn’t have to tear down the Brooklyn Bridge. You were a lion of Islam if you stabbed your neighbor because he was an apostate,” he said.
As ISIS rose to prominence, the terrorists released horrific videos of highly produced violence, showing torture and murder in extremely graphic details.
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But even after defeat, the terrorist group continues to maintain an online presence that includes propaganda videos and a weekly newsletter, according to Times report.
A member loyal to the Islamic State waves an ISIS flag in Raqqa on June 29, 2014. (REUTERS/Stringer)
About a year before Jabbar’s rampage, ISIS propagandists encouraged supporters to break into people’s homes and “kill them wherever you find them.” Voice of America reported at the time.
Counterterrorism investigators have been battling lone wolves inspired by such campaigns for years, Mauro said.
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He calls it the “loser to the lion” syndrome — radicalized lone wolves who have nothing going for them become convinced they can achieve martyrdom through acts of terrorism.
But even with increased surveillance and awareness of the problem, attackers can slip through the cracks.
In another New Year’s Eve attack, on December 31, 2022, a 19-year-old Maine man named Trevor Bickford drove into New York City and attacked three police officers with a machete while shouting “Allahu akbar.”
Allegedly, he was already on the FBI’s radar, and at the beginning of that year he became radicalized and decided “wage jihadHe is serving a prison sentence of 27 years.
Fox News’ Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
