While there are many similarities between what happened in two cities on New Year’s Day, the FBI is concentrating on one huge difference. The Army veteran who plowed an electric truck rented from Turo through a crowd of revelers in New Orleans was “radicalized.” The Army Green Beret who exploded an electric Tesla Cybertruck rented from Turo in Las Vegas simply had PTSD.
FBI probing when, where and how
The FBI really wants to know “when, where and how” Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s alleged “radicalization” occurred. The ISIS affiliated terrorist killed 14 and injured dozens by ramming a Ford F-150 Lightning truck along the Bourbon Street sidewalk, early New Year’s Day.
Before that, he planted a few explosive devices which he apparently didn’t have a chance to detonate.
While the name Shamsud-Din Jabbar sounds like it came from another nation, the 42-year-old Army veteran is a U.S.-born citizen from Texas.
He also happened to serve in Afghanistan in 2009. That’s the same year Army Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger was in Afghanistan. Just a coincidence, the FBI says.
In the hours leading up to his terror attack on New Orleans, Jabbar posted several videos online “proclaiming his support for ISIS.”
He happened to mention that “he joined ISIS before this summer” but the FBI hasn’t figured out how long before. Some say they should be checking his activities since 2009.
Egypt in 2023
More recently, in 2023, Jabbar took a little vacation to Egypt. His half-brother told the press that he was there for around a month. All he told the family is that it “was cheap and beautiful.” That’s part of the ongoing investigation the FBI relates, and leave it at that.
They do go as far as confirming they’re “working to determine what he did during his travel in Egypt, why he went and who he interacted with while there.”
He’s dead, so there won’t be a trial. Even so, the FBI wants to know “whether he had been radicalized prior to the travel or if the travel marked the start of his radicalization.” If he had been recruited sooner, there might be more connection to the Las Vegas case than they want to get into.
While the feds aren’t saying much, the local prosecutor is. “This next most important phase of the investigation is to find out how that radicalization happened and if it happened on that trip.”
Since Thursday, “investigators have been focused on piecing together his path to radicalization and the events that led up to his decision to attack Bourbon Street.” Reporters beat the FBI to the trailer he was living in.
Apparently, he kept goats, sheep, and chickens outside and had a bomb making lab inside. Two FBI agents who leaked reveal that “there is evidence at this time that Jabbar had been in contact with a direct ISIS representative.“
