New Orleans terrorist shooter Shamsud-Din Jabbar was radicalized by ISIS online “within a few weeks,” according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Jabbar killed 14 civilians when a Ford F-150 rental truck plowed through New Year’s Eve crowds celebrating on Bourbon Street around 3:15 a.m. on Jan. 1. He then started shooting at the police, who returned fire, killing the assailant.
“[H]It appears to be inspired – from afar – by ISIS. And it is, in many ways, the most challenging type of terrorist threat that we face,” Wray said “60 minutes” in an extensive interview that aired on Sunday. “You’re talking about guys like this, who are radicalized not over years but weeks, and whose method of attack is still very lethal, but pretty crude. And if you think about that old saying about connecting the dots, there aren’t many, there are a lot of dots to connect, and there is very little time to connect them.”
The FBI noted earlier this month that Jabbar, 42, traveled to Cairo, Egypt, from June 22 to July 3, 2023, and then returned to the US. On the second trip on July 10, 2023, he traveled to Ontario, Canada and returned to the US a few days later.
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Shamsud-Din Jabbar shown in an undated photo released by the FBI after he drove his pickup truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans and died in a shootout with responding officers. (FBI)
The Texas native was a twice-divorced military veteran who, despite a lucrative job at a major consulting firm, had a history of financial difficulties and defaulted on child support payments, records show.
Before the attack on New Orleans, he visited the city twice – once in October and again in November. He used Meta smart glasses to record his surroundings while cycling through the French Quarter months before carrying out the deadly attack.
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Christopher Wray resigns as FBI director as President-elect Donald Trump takes office for his second term. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
On December 31, Jabbar rented a Ford pickup truck in Houston and then drove him to New Orleans, where he signed up on AirBnb. Authorities later found bomb-making material and the remains of a fire at the property, saying Jabbar likely tried to cover up his crime by trying to burn evidence at a rental home in the St. Roch, about two miles from the French Quarter.
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“It’s pretty clear by now that this is a guy who was radicalized online and was determined to try to kill as many innocent people as possible in the name of ISIS,” Wray said in an interview with “60 Minutes.”
Investigators work at the scene after a person drove a vehicle into a crowd earlier at Canal and Bourbon streets in New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
He added that these types of lone wolf threats are becoming more common in the United States.
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“There was a guy, a Pakistani national, who we were working with our Canadian partners to arrest just a few months ago,” Wray explained to host Scott Pelley. This guy was trying to enter the US, enter New York City, to carry out a mass shooting at the Jewish Center in Brooklyn. … According to him, he wanted to carry out the biggest attack in the US since September 11.”
The FBI continues to investigate the attack and said that while Jabbar apparently acted alone, authorities are still investigating whether he had accomplices.
Michael Ruiz of Fox News contributed to this report.
