The man police say drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers, killing 14 and injuring dozens more, posted five videos on social media before he carried out the carnage in New Orleans.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar picked up the Ford F150 in Houston on Dec. 30 and drove it to New Orleans, Deputy Assistant Christopher Raia with FBI's Counterterrorism Division said at a press conference on Thursday.
Jabbar proclaimed his allegiance to the terror group ISIS in the timestamped videos posted to his Facebook page during the drive, beginning at 1:29 a.m. on New Year's Eve and ending at 3:02 a.m. New Year's Day, just before he raced the vehicle flying an ISIS flag down Bourbon Street, running down scores of pedestrians.
In the first video, Raia said Jabbar originally considered harming his family but worried that the "headlines would not focus on the war between the believers and the disbelievers."
Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran from Texas, also noted that he had joined ISIS the summer before and had written his last will and testament, Raia said.
The FBI also confirmed that 14 people died in the attack. Jabbar was killed by police after he opened fire on them.
"So what I can tell you right now is that he was 100% inspired by ISIS. And so we're digging— we're digging through more of the social media, more interviews, working with some of our other partners to ascertain just how to ascertain a little bit more about that connection," Raia said.
