
Little by little, the FBI has been releasing information on the New Year’s Day attacker who drove his pickup truck through a crowd of people in New Orleans. The latest (and most disturbing) piece of information comes from videos filmed by the attacker himself. Turns out, he had the whole thing planned out.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar was identified as the man who plowed through a crowd of New Year’s celebrators on Bourbon Street with his Ford pickup just a few hours after the ball dropped. Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said in a press conference Jabbar left behind five videos that exposed his motive behind the incident that left 14 people dead.
The videos were not made available for view to the public but authorities were briefed on the contents. Here are three takeaways from them:
Chilling Time Stamps
Raia said the videos were recorded while Jabbar traveled between Houston to New Orleans and were posted to Facebook, CNN reports. Jabbar’s videos were posted between 1:29 a.m. and 3:02 a.m. - the last video being posted just minutes before he planted improvised explosives ahead of the attack.
Inspired by ISIS
In the press conference, Raia said upon reviewing the videos, Jabbar proclaimed his allegiance to the terrorist organization, ISIS. He explained that he joined the group before summer of 2024. Authorities said they recovered an ISIS flag from Jabbar’s vehicle following the crash. The military veteran had served in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2015.
Plots on Family
In the videos, Jabbar also discussed his divorce, authorities said. ABC News previously reported he had been married three times. Upon his most recent divorce, Jabbar said in the videos he planned to gather his family for a “celebration” but actually intended on killing all of them, authorities said.
He changed his mind because he didn’t want the news to focus on that but rather “the war between the believers and the disbelievers,” per CNN.
Among the videos, cellphones and laptops believed to belong to Jabbar were confiscated by authorities. Jabbar died after being shot during a standoff with authorities, New Orleans police said.