US Military veteran additionally visited town twice in months main as much as truck assault, legislation enforcement officers say.
Authorities in america are investigating the potential significance of abroad journeys made by the person liable for driving a truck into New 12 months’s revellers in New Orleans, legislation enforcement officers have stated.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US Military veteran who proclaimed his help 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 might or might not tie into his actions in our metropolis,” Lyonel Myrthil, particular agent answerable for the bureau’s New Orleans subject workplace, informed reporters.
Jabbar additionally made not less than 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 line with police.
Myrthil stated Jabbar was carrying the glasses, however didn’t flip them on, when he carried out the New 12 months’s Day assault, which killed 14 individuals and injured 35 others.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia stated that each 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 informed reporters.
Jabbar drove a rented pick-up truck round a barrier and sped down the famed Bourbon Avenue earlier than being shot lifeless by responding law enforcement officials, in line with authorities.
US President Joe Biden is ready to go to New Orleans with first woman Jill Biden on Monday to pay his respects to the victims of the assault.