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The New Year's Eve attack in New Orleans was an “act of terrorism” but unrelated to the Tesla Cybertruck bombing in Las Vegas just hours later, according to the FBI.
While research on New Orleans attack was in its early stages, the FBI said it believed the suspect, US Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, acted alone.
“It was a planned and malicious act,” FBI deputy director Christopher Raia said Thursday. “We are confident at this point that we have nothing to go with (sic).”
There was “no definite link between the attack here in New Orleans and the central one.” vegas“For now,” Raia said.
Fourteen people were killed and 35 injured when a man drove a truck into a large crowd and opened fire in the city center. New Orleans in the early hours of New Year's Day. Jabbar was also killed in a shootout with the police.
The brutality in New Orleans and the explosion in Las Vegas have shocked Americans right at the end of the busy holiday season, causing concern about crime in the US, and Donald Trump. trying to criticize Joe Biden's violent policies.
Mr. Biden on Thursday was briefed on what the White House called a terrorist attack.
The FBI said it was investigating Jabbar's possible ties to terrorist organizations. On Wednesday, the agency found an Isis flag on his truck, and two “active” improvised explosive devices in the street, law enforcement was paralyzed, Raia said.
Three phones and two laptops linked to Jabbar were also found in the search, and investigators say they have begun to piece together the timing of the attack.
Jabbar picked up a rented Ford F-150 truck in Houston, Texas, on December 30, and drove east to New Orleans the next day.
In the Facebook videos posted on the road, Jabbar expressed his support for Isis, and said that at first he had planned to target family and friends, but “he was concerned that the media would not focus on the war between believers and non-believers”, Raia said.
The FBI said Jabber claimed to have joined ISIS over the summer and wrote the will.
Just hours after his deadly attack in New Orleans, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside Trump's Las Vegas hotel.
On Thursday, Las Vegas sheriff Kevin McMahill said investigators “don't know” of anyone else involved in the case other than the driver of the Cybertruck, who was identified as Matthew Livelsberger, 37, also a decorated U.S. soldier.
The driver had a gunshot wound to the head that police believe was self-inflicted before the explosion, McMahill said, standing in front of pictures of the Cybertruck's charred remains.
Police also found Livelsberger's military ID, passport and credit cards, as well as a 50-caliber Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol, a cell phone and a smartwatch.
The sheriff added that Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent a team to Las Vegas to collect footage from cameras inside the Cybertruck.
No motive has been established for the Las Vegas “bomb”, an FBI official said.
Kenny Cooper, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent in Las Vegas, said the “level of expertise” of the Cybertruck bomb “is not what we would expect from someone with this kind of military experience”.
Jabbar, a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas, was a US Army veteran who worked for the consulting firm Deloitte. The company said Thursday that Jabbar will have a “staff-level role” through 2021.
“We are outraged by this shameful act of violence and are doing everything we can to assist the authorities in their investigation,” Deloitte added.
The US military said Jabbar served as a civilian and information technology specialist between 2007 and 2020. He was deployed to Afghanistan between February 2009 and January 2010.
The military also confirmed that Livelsberger was an active duty US soldier. At the time of his death, the master sergeant was assigned to the United States Army Special Forces and was on leave from Germany. McMahill said Livelsberger was a Green Beret, a member of the US military's special forces.
Both Livelsberger and Jabbar were stationed at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty) in North Carolina, but there was no record of them serving there in the same unit or at the same time, McMahill said. There was no evidence that they served together in Afghanistan, although investigators continue to look for any possible connection between the men.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington