New Orleans attack live updates: FBI says no others worked with terror suspect in rampage on Bourbon Street
New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar and the driver in the New Year’s Day Tesla Cybertruck blast in Las Vegas are said to have served at the same military base, according to local media reports
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Your support makes all the difference.Law enforcement officials have said that they do not believe that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was “solely responsible” for the deadly New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans.
Jabbar, 42, killed at least 15 people and injured dozens of others after ramming a truck into a crowd of revellers on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street on Wednesday morning after evading police barriers. Officials do not believe Jabbar acted alone and are investigating whether he had accomplices.
The FBI is now looking at the possible link between Jabbar, a US citizen and Army veteran, and the driver in the Tesla Cybertruck blast outside Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel which took place just hours earlier. Matthew Livelsberger, 37, a former Army veteran of Colorado Springs, was allegedly behind the wheel when the vehicle exploded, according to local media reports.
Livelsberger and Jabbar are believd to have served at the same military base, sources told Denver7.
President Joe Biden said that Jabbar was “inspired by ISIS” and had a “desire to kill. He said: “I know while this person committed a terrible assault on the city, the spirit of our New Orleans will never, never, never be defeated. It always will shine forth.”
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US Army veteran who killed 15 in New Orleans attack was inspired by Islamic State
Governor hopes to give full timeline of events early next week
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said the authorities may be able to “walk everyone through” a timeline of the incident by early next week and said it’s “extremely premature” to divulge details.
“It would be my hope that, as some additional time goes [by], maybe closer to the beginning of next week, if we've got it to what extent buttoned up as we could, I would work with the FBI and the city, and maybe we could come up with a timeline to be able to get you those information,” Landry told reporters.
“Kind of walk everyone through from day one.”
Governor calls New Orleans ‘one of the safest places on Earth’
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry asserted that New Orleans is “one of the safest places on Earth”.
After being probed by a reporter who said that just 12 hours ago, the FBI were telling those in New Orleans to be vigilant, the governor noted that information was subject to change.
“Everbody lives in a 15 second TikTok video,” Landry said. “We think that life operatea like it does on our mobile phones and it just doesn’t.”
He later addded: “Guess what I do know right now, this is one of the safest places on Earth. It doesn’t mean that nothing can happen.”
Bourbon street to be reopened prior to Sugar Bowl game, mayor says
Bourbon Street is due to be opened before the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl this afternoon, the New Orleans mayor said.
LaToya Cantrell said that the city is working on reopening the street by 2.30 p.m. local time.
New Orleans mayor says that victims were ID’d after being removed from Bourbon Street
LaToya Cantrell, the New Orleans Mayor, said that victims were Identified and their families notified, as their bodies have been removed from Bourbon Street.
“The FBI was able to clear Bourbon Street,” Cantrell said.
“What that meant... was that we were able to remove our victims, identify them and notify their families.”
‘No definitive link’ between Las Vegas truck explosion and New Orleans attack, FBI says
“As you know, there's also an FBI investigation in Las Vegas,” said Christopher Raia, the FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director of its Counter Terrorist Division.
“We are following up on all potential leads and not ruling everything out. However, at this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas.”
Jabbar posted videos about joining ISIS hours before the attack, FBI says
Shamsud-Din Jabbar posted several videos to an online platform, proclaiming his support for ISIS, Raia said.
He said they were time-stamped from between 1.29 a.m. and and 3.02 a.m. on January 1.
In the first video, Jabbar explains he orginally planned to hurt his friends and family, but was concerned that the media would not focus on the “war between believeres and the disbelievers,” Raia said.
Jabbar also stated that he joined ISIS befofe this summer, he added.
Lt. Gov of Texas calls for FBI agent’s dismissal and brands her comments ‘shocking, idiotic, and alarming'
The Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick has called for the dismissal of FBI Assistant Special Agent Alethea Duncan after she initially told reporters that the New Orleans attack “is not a terrorist event”.
Writing on X late on Wednesday, Patrick said: “The idea that the FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge in New Orleans said this morning that this was not a terrorist attack is shocking, idiotic, and alarming.
“If the agent was unsure, she should’ve said she didn’t know at that moment. The fact that the FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge said, with assurance, that this was not a terrorist attack should be reason for the agent’s termination.”
Later on Wednesday, Duncan said that the GBI did not believe Jabbar was “solely responsible” and were investigating the incident as an “act of terrorism”.
‘No one else involved beside Shamsud-Din Jabbar,' FBI says
“We do not assess at this point that anyone else is involved in this attack except for Shamsud-Din Jabbar,” the FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director from its Counter Terrorist Division, Christopher Raia, said.
FBI agent denounces ‘evil act’ of terrorism
The FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director from its Counter Terrorist Division, Christopher Raia, said: “First and foremost, let me be very clear about this point. This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act.”
Over 1,000 law enforcement agents involved in investigation
“Over 1000 law enforcement agents and officers - men and women - have been poring over countless amounts of data, of videos, of surveillances, interviews, tracking down every possible lead that came to us,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said.
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