Former human resources specialist and information technology specialist for the US Army Shamsud-Din Jabbar showed no signs of extremism before the early morning on Jan. 1st, 2025, when he drove a pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year’s celebrations on Bourbon Street, New Orleans. It seemed as though Jabbar was attempting to hit as many people as possible before crashing into an aerial work platform and exiting the vehicle as he opened fire on the crowd. He killed fourteen people and injured many others before receiving multiple fatal gunshot wounds from responding officers.
In wake of the tragedy, the FBI has labeled the attack as terrorism after finding possible IEDs (improvised explosive devices), weapons, and an ISIS flag in the vehicle. Just before the attack, Jabbar posted videos of himself to Facebook, pledging allegiance to the IS.
Reportedly, Jabbar isolated himself in 2024 and began uploading videos depicting his religious views to SoundCloud. One of his ex-wives said that he had been acting off in the months leading up to the attack, seemingly due to these same factors.
There were two pipe bombs found in coolers a few blocks from the attack, and the remote connected to them was also located in the truck. The same day, there was a fire at an Airbnb that Jabbar was thought to be renting. The fire was likely an attempt to cover his tracks.
It appears that Jabbar acted alone. Though he took inspiration from the terrorist group, investigators have made no further ties between ISIS and the perpetrator.
Hours after the attack, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, injuring seven people. The perpetrator, Matthew Livelsberger, shot himself inside the truck right before the explosion, and left a note that said the blast was meant to be a ‘wakeup call’ for the country, because “…Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives.”
He wrote in his iPhone Notes app that this was also a way to cleanse himself and his mind from the brothers he lost and the people he killed during his military service.
Investigators have not tied the New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks together, although both perpetrators are reported to have worked on the same military base, and both the white truck Jabbar drove and the exploded Cybertruck were rented from the same app. The FBI has stated that they will not rule anything out at this point in the investigation, but there is no definitive evidence pointing to a connection.
