US Military veteran additionally visited town twice in months main as much as truck assault, regulation enforcement officers say.
Authorities in america are investigating the potential significance of abroad journeys made by the person chargeable for driving a truck into New Yr’s revellers in New Orleans, regulation enforcement officers have stated.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US Military veteran who proclaimed his assist for ISIL (ISIS) in movies posted on-line earlier than the assault, visited Egypt and Canada in the summertime of 2023, an FBI official stated on Sunday.
“Our brokers are getting solutions as to the place he went, whom he met with, how these journeys could or could not tie into his actions in our metropolis,” Lyonel Myrthil, particular agent accountable for the bureau’s New Orleans subject workplace, instructed reporters.
Jabbar additionally made at the very least two journeys to New Orleans, in October and November, officers stated.
On his first go to, he rode a bicycle across the metropolis’s French Quarter, the place the assault was carried out, whereas recording the scene with Meta good glasses, in response to police.
Myrthil stated Jabbar was carrying the glasses, however didn’t flip them on, when he carried out the New Yr’s Day assault, which killed 14 individuals and injured 35 others.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia stated that every one proof indicated that Jabbar, a US citizen, had acted alone in finishing up the assault, although investigators had been trying into his contacts in and outdoors the US.
“Now we have not seen any indications of an confederate in america, however we’re nonetheless trying into potential associates within the US and outdoors of our borders,” Raia instructed reporters.
Jabbar drove a rented pick-up truck round a barrier and sped down the famed Bourbon Road earlier than being shot useless by responding cops, in response to authorities.
US President Joe Biden is ready to go to New Orleans with first girl Jill Biden on Monday to pay his respects to the victims of the assault.