What we know about the attack perpetrated on New Year’s Eve on Bourbon Street.
The FBI is now investigating a probable terrorist attack after a man deliberately drove a pickup into a crowd on New Year’s Eve on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
The attack was appalling: the vehicle mowed down dozens of passers-by, causing at least fifteen deaths at this stage, according to a latest report, and around thirty injured.
According to local police chief Anne Kirkpatrick, the driver tried to “run over as many people as he could.”
Who was the attacker?
The man behind the attack was quickly shot dead by police following a shootout. He was quickly identified. He is a radicalized former American soldier. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, had converted to Islam and was “inspired” by the jihadists of the Islamic State group, a flag of which was found by investigators on board his vehicle.
Denouncing a “despicable attack”President Joe Biden clarified that the attacker had “published videos on social networks indicating that he was inspired by ISIS” and that he had a “desire to kill”.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar had served in the United States Army and was notably deployed to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010. He finished his career with the rank of master sergeant, according to the Department of Defense.
Explosive devices found
The FBI also indicated that two homemade explosive devices had been found in the attacker’s car but also in the Bourbon Street area. The devices had to be defused. This discovery suggests that the assailant would not have acted alone and that he would have acted with “potential accomplices”. had been defused.
Suspicious explosion in Las Vegas
The US president also indicated that authorities were indeed looking into whether there was a “connection” between the attack in New Orleans and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas which caused one dead and several injured.
The vehicles involved in both incidents had been rented through the same application.
The Las Vegas sheriff said it was a “a coincidence (…) that we must continue to examine.”
The attack in New Orleans comes less than three weeks before the transfer of power between Joe Biden and Donald Trump who quickly made a link between the affair and illegal immigration although the author was born in the United States .
The attack occurred on the eve of a major college football game, the Sugar Bowl, which was ultimately postponed for 24 hours.