'Premeditated and an evil act': FBI updates on investigation into New Orleans 'act of terrorism'
CTV
The FBI now says that the pickup truck driver responsible for a deadly rampage in New Orleans acted alone.
The U.S. Army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revellers acted alone, the FBI said Thursday, reversing its position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others in carrying out a deadly attack being investigated as an act of terrorism inspired by the Islamic State group.
The FBI also revealed that the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas, posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the militant group and previewed the violence that he would soon unleash in the city's famed French Quarter district.
“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” said Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, calling Jabbar “100% inspired” by the Islamic State.
The attack along Bourbon Street killed 14 revellers, along with Jabbar, 42, who was fatally shot in a firefight with police after steering his speeding truck around a barricade and plowing into the crowd. About 30 people were injured.
It was the deadliest IS-inspired assault on U.S. soil in years, laying bare what federal officials have warned is a resurgent international terrorism threat. That threat is emerging as the FBI and other agencies brace for dramatic leadership upheaval after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's administration takes office.
Raia stressed that there was no indication of a connection between the New Orleans attack and the explosion Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck filled with explosives outside Trump's Las Vegas hotel. The person inside that truck, a decorated U.S. Army Green Beret, shot himself in the head just before detonation, authorities said.
The FBI continued to hunt for clues about the 42-year-old Jabbar, but said that a day into its investigation, it was now confident that he was not aided by anyone else in the attack, which killed an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a single mother, a father of two and a former Princeton University football star, among others.
