New Orleans attack could embolden ISIS to radicalize other Americans: experts

Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s New Year’s Day massacre in New Orleans, carried out in a pickup truck flying an ISIS flag, could embolden the terrorist organization to radicalize more Americans, experts told Fox News Digital.

Jabbar’s younger brother he told the New York Times that he and his military veteran brother grew up Christian in Beaumont, Texas before the now-deceased gunman converted to Islam as an adult.

“What he did does not represent Islam,” said the younger brother. “This is more a kind of radicalization than a religion.”

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He added that Jabbar didn’t know what he wanted to do in life, and he started his military career “to get some kind of discipline.”

While driving from his home in Texas to Louisiana on Tuesday, law enforcement sources said Jabbar posted videos on his Facebook account pledging allegiance to ISIS.

Retired FBI agents Scott Duffey and Chris Swecker told Fox News Digital that Wednesday’s attack could embolden ISIS, other terrorist groups or individuals who are radicalized.

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“This is a time when ISIS is under great stress and their existence is threatened in Syria and elsewhere. It would make sense for them to double down on their message to radicalize Americans to get them going and activate whatever cells they have in place,” Swecker said.

Before the rampage in New Orleans, Jabbar posted several videos on Facebook expressing his support for ISIS, the FBI said at a news conference Thursday.

“In the first video, Jabbar explains that he only planned to harm his family and friends, but was worried that the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between believers and unbelievers,'” Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI Christopher Raia he said.

ISIS and other terrorist organizations often use social media to recruit new members, experts say.

“ISIS and other foreign adversaries use all kinds of social media platforms to spread anti-American ideologies, rhetoric and propaganda,” Duffey said. “It’s free speech and designed to slowly convert young people to start questioning their American and religious ideals.”

“It starts with soft messaging to get people into their thought process,” he continued. “Links are often provided that lead people to additional messages … sowing division and mistrust of government in young impressionable minds.

“I think there’s often an underlying mental issue in the reader that draws them to the message, which eventually leads to… coded messages of violence.”

“It’s a win for them if someone does something like what they did yesterday,” he continued.

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Most people who are radicalized do so by online materials, said John Ryan, who served as the head of the Port Authority of New York and the New Jersey Police Department.

“Being an IT person, that would mean he probably knows how to access the dark web where there’s a lot more material available,” he said of Jabbar’s background in information technology.

“As for whether it might trigger other people, unfortunately there are a lot of keyboard warriors who are exposed to it and are looking for something to relate to. Given the high level of mental health issues post-Covid and the number of protests in of support for Hamas and pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli, the answer is yes. Mostly the lone wolf type of people.”

Although law enforcement officials were initially looking for accomplices in the attack, the FBI said Thursday that Jabbar appears to have acted alone. However, Swecker said, this does not diminish the possibility of an active terrorist cell within the country.

“If his radicalization was the result of ISIS propaganda and calls to action online, this is it [still] international terrorism. We call it domestic, but it’s directed from a terrorist organization,” Swecker said.

“Even if he doesn’t have an ID, even if he doesn’t talk on the phone with the director of ISIS, but is called to action by propaganda on their websites, it’s still international terrorism,” he said. “It’s very much part of the plan for al-Qaeda and these international groups.”

Jabbar was stationed at Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty, North Carolina, as well as active duty US Army soldier Matthew Livelsbergerwho police said he deliberately created and died in an explosion that injured seven people outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day.

Investigators have found no evidence of a link between the terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and the Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas, despite the suspects’ shared military backgrounds.

“If they served on the same base, I think I’m still very open and there’s a distinct possibility that they connected online or through their previous military associations,” Swecker said. “If [Livelsberger] was a convert, he would have gone to the same [religious] services as [Jabbar].”

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“What [Jabbar] did and what happened in Las Vegas lends credibility to the movement and creates that excitement for others who may be considering it [carrying] on their agenda in the short term,” Duffey said.