Federal authorities investigating the avowed Islamic State (IS) sympathizer who carried out the New Year’s Day Bourbon Street terror attack in New Orleans said they were still investigating his potential associates elsewhere in the US and abroad.
In a news briefing, officials from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said they were pursuing leads in Houston, Atlanta and Tampa, Florida. They also revealed that Shamsud-Din Jabbar visited New Orleans twice in the months before the attack, and, on one of those trips, rode a bicycle up Bourbon Street wearing smart Meta glasses and also rode around the French Quarter neighborhood – ostensibly, officials said, to prepare for the attack that he carried out, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more.
Speaking to reporters, the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counter-terrorism, Christopher Raia, said: “All investigative details and evidence that we have now still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans. We have not seen any indications of an accomplice in the United States, but we are still looking into potential associates in the US and outside of our borders.”
Raia went on to reveal the itineraries of several trips – including his ultimate target – that Jabbar, 42, took before the deadly attack.
In 2023, Jabbar traveled to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, from 22 June to 3 July, according to Raia. He then flew to Canada on 10 July and returned to the US three days later.
Then in 2024, Jabbar made at least two trips to New Orleans – one in October and then another in November. Beginning 30 October, while the city celebrated Halloween, Jabbar stayed at a rental home in New Orleans and was in the city at least two days during that time, Raia said.
“Jabbar, using Meta glasses, recorded a video as he rode through the French Quarter on a bicycle,” Raia said. “Videos showed Jabbar during that trip in October with his Meta glasses. As we continue to learn more about that trip, we ask anyone who may have seen or interacted with him to contact us now for more information.”
One video clip released by the FBI showed Jabbar riding up Bourbon during the daytime on an unspecified date. He was about two blocks away from where he was killed in a gunfight with police who confronted him.
Another clip shows him riding on Canal Street, about two blocks away, and across the road from the entrance to Bourbon Street, where he later rounded a police cruiser blocking the street and launch the attack.
One clip showed Jabbar wearing a pair of the glasses as they recorded video. In the clip, he looked at himself in a mirror inside a home, wearing a T-shirt with the words “It all starts with VMWare vSphere” – an apparent reference to the cloud computing virtualization platform.
Raia said Jabbar was wearing the glasses – which allow users to take photos and videos, as well as livestream hands-free – during the night of the attacks. However, Jabbar did not activate the glasses to livestream the attacks, said Raia, without elaborating.
It was only the latest ominous revelation of the weaponization of yet another tech giant’s technology in the case. Officials have said Jabbar obtained a short-term rental home where he stayed in the final hours before the attack on the Airbnb platform. And officials have said he rented the truck used in the attack on the Turo platform.
Meanwhile, the army released information showing Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger – a decorated special forces solider who died in an apparent suicide and vehicle bombing at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day – both served in the military branch in Afghanistan for about seven months beginning in May 2009.
Livelsberger at the time was assigned to the 10th special forces group, and Jabbar was a human resources specialist.
Jabbar and Livelsberger also served at the army’s Fort Bragg in North Carolina for about 10 months beginning in December 2012, the branch’s statement said.
Livelsberger rented the car used in the Las Vegas explosion from Turo. Despite the multiple coincidences, Raia said earlier this week: “At this point there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas.”
Journalist Steve Herman on Sunday published a screenshot of an alert saying the cases in New Orleans and Las Vegas had prompted the US military’s northern command to direct all military installations to immediately implement heightened security measures, including 100% ID checks, random inspections and suspension of the so-called trusted traveler program administered by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency.
Authorities also disclosed more details of Jabbar’s movements on the day of the attack.
Investigators believe Jabbar crossed into Louisiana from Texas at about 2.30pm on 31 December, Raia said. He said he rented a vehicle that was seen again in Gonzales, Louisiana, a drive west of a little less than an hour from New Orleans, at about 9pm.
By 10pm, footage showed Jabbar unloading the white pickup truck in New Orleans outside of the rental home he used in the city’s St Roch neighborhood, about two miles away from Bourbon Street.
At 12.41am, Jabbar parked the truck and walked to Royal and Governor Nichols streets, one block toward the Mississippi River from the 1200 block of Bourbon. He placed the first of two homemade bombs – designed to be detonated by remote control – hidden in a cooler in about the 600 block of Bourbon Street at 1.53am.
According to federal authorities, an individual on Bourbon Street – who authorities said they have no reason to believe was involved – dragged the cooler a block to about the 700 block of Bourbon, where authorities found it after the attack.
At about 2.20am in about the 500 block of Bourbon, Jabbar placed the second homemade bomb in a cooler, authorities said. At 3.15am, Jabbar plowed the rented truck into the crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street, starting at the beginning of the 100 block and crashing in the middle of the 300 block.
The truck, authorities said, displayed an IS. The rifle he used in the shootout was bought privately from someone who did not know what he had planned, officials said. Officials said Jabbar – who wore body armor and a helmet – had fashioned a homemade device meant to suppress the noise of gunshots fired by the rifle.
Additionally, in regards to the devices Jabbar made, authorities said he “didn’t have access to a detonator so he used an electrical match in its place to try and set off the explosive material”.
Joshua Jackson, the ATF’s New Orleans field division’s special agent in charge, said: “The IED is not unique. The abnormality is that Jabbar used an explosive material that is set off by a detonator. Detonators are not easily accessible by the common citizen, so usually homemade bombs are made with explosive material that is set off by a flame.”
Jackson added: “Jabbar’s lack of experience and crude nature of putting the device together is the reason why he used the wrong device to set the explosives off.”
Shortly after 5am, a fire was reported at the Mandeville Street rental home. Local firefighters found explosive devices and bomb-making materials.
According to Jackson, Jabbar set the fire using an open flame just before he left. The fire began in the linen closet next to the rental home’s washer and dryer. Jabbar also placed accelerants in other rooms of the home “which we believe was intentional so that the entire residence would burn down in an attempt to destroy evidence of his crimes”, Jackson said.
Jackson also revealed that Jabbar drove from Houston to New Orleans by himself. And throughout his entire time at the rental location in New Orleans, “he was the only one seen coming and going from that location”, Jackson said.
Video footage from a doorbell camera obtained by CNN also showed Jabbar outside the rental home before the attack by himself.
Speaking at the briefing about the bomb-making supplies at the short-term rental, Joshua Jackson, the ATF’s New Orleans field division’s special agent in charge, said the explosive materials recovered were “all relatively common and available right here in the United States”. Those statements appeared to dispel some reporting that Jabbar had used rare explosive material not seen in the US or Europe.
Jabbar’s father had converted from Christianity to Islam. The army veteran’s name was given to him at birth, though he converted to Islam later.
All available indications were that Jabbar fell into extremism after marital and financial woes. He had previously spent more than a decade in the US army, having served in Afghanistan and having earned a global war on terrorism service medal.
Livelsberger, the Las Vegas suspect, had reportedly shown depressive symptoms after returning from a tour in Afghanistan in 2019 with a traumatic brain injury but not treated them. His wife had reportedly broken up with him after an argument over apparent infidelity less than a week before the explosion.
Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed to this report
