According to the FBI, a Texas man who supported the Islamic State was the only perpetrator of the New Orleans attack.

A US Army veteran who murdered 14 people by slamming a vehicle into a throng of New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans claimed loyalty to Islamic State and appeared to have produced recordings condemning music, drugs, and alcohol.  Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native who had served in Afghanistan, carried out the assault alone, the FBI concluded on Thursday, contradicting an earlier assessment that he may have had collaborators.He was murdered in a confrontation with police following the rampage, which injured scores of people and was classified by the FBI as a terrorist attack.
“It was premeditated and an evil act,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said during a news briefing on Thursday.

Raia said authorities were looking into Jabbar’s “path to radicalization,” but it was unclear how he went from a military veteran, real estate agent, and former employee of the large tax and consulting firm Deloitte to someone who was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” or Islamic State. An Islamic State flag flew from a flagpole connected to the rear of the rental vehicle used for the attack. Despite being severely wounded by a continuous military operation by a US-led coalition, Islamic State has continuing to attract followers online, analysts believe. Jabbar’s half-brother was also looking for answers, claiming Shamsud-Din Jabbar had been struggling to recover from a recent divorce but had shown no symptoms of rage just weeks before the attack.

“He was smart, funny, charismatic, loving, compassionate, humble and literally wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Abdur Rahim Jabbar told Reuters in an interview at his home in Beaumont, Texas. “That’s why it’s so devastating. This degree of maliciousness is not like him. We are trying to understand what changed, too.” He said their father broke down upon hearing the news. “(Our dad) started crying. He was saying ‘nope, nope, not my oldest boy,'” Abdur Jabbar said.

The slaughter on New Orleans’ historic Bourbon Street in the French Quarter during a Christmas celebration, as well as an explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, have provided an unsettling start to the new year in the United States. The FBI stated there had uncovered no definite relationship between the New Orleans attempt and the Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas later that day, which killed the driver and injured seven people. Law enforcement authorities around the country have promised increased protection for major public events.

The Sugar Bowl college football game, originally set for Wednesday in New Orleans as a New Year’s Day tradition, was rescheduled for Thursday with additional security and a minute of silence to mourn the deaths. Once the game began, Notre Dame beat Georgia 23-10. Bourbon Street reopened to the public earlier today. The city is also preparing for weeks of Mardi Gras celebrations beginning Jan. 6 and hosting the National Football League’s Super Bowl next month, with local authorities vowing increased security for the packed events. Shamsud-Din Jabbar recently rediscovered his Muslim faith after quitting it in his twenties and thirties, according to his half brother.

Abdur Jabbar confirmed to Reuters that the recordings posted on the SoundCloud platform were of his half-brother. “Music is the voice of Satan. … Satan’s voice is also the misleading of people from Allah’s way,” Shamsud-Din Jabbar says in one of the recordings. “One of the signs of the end of times will be that some groups of Muslims will think that playing music is no longer sinful,” he said, adding that “Allah will punish them with an earthquake and transformation.” He also decries the use of “intoxicants like marijuana, alcohol, sedatives, opioids, stimulants.”

According to public records and interviews, Jabbar has struggled with familial and financial issues in recent years. Abdur Jabbar stated that his father suffered a stroke in 2023 and that he was assisting in the arrangements for his care. That followed his September 2022 divorce from his second wife, with whom he had one kid, according to court documents. According to the FBI, Jabbar traveled from Houston to New Orleans on December 31. He uploaded five videos on Facebook on the morning of the assault, between 1:29 a.m. and 3:02 a.m., in which he stated his support for Islamic State, according to the FBI.

In the first video, Jabbar stated that he had previously intended to attack his family and friends, but was afraid that media attention would not focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers,” Raia claimed.
According to Raia, Jabbar stated in the tapes that he joined Islamic State prior to last summer and gave his final will and testament. A few hours before the incident, surveillance video showed Jabbar installing two improvised explosive devices in coolers at junctions along Bourbon Street. They were both deemed safe on the scene.