New Orleans attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar kept a bomb-making unit at his Texas trailer home, images show. The FBI also released a video showing the image of a blue-and-white cooler that contained an IED, which Jabbar placed near the intersection of Bourbon and Orleans Street.
The images from his ramshackle house in north Houston, sourced by the New York Post, also show chemical residue and chemical bottles inside his home. The house was raided by the FBI and the items seized.
The FBI also released a video showing Jabbar strolling around New Orleans an hour before he rammed a pickup truck into a crowd celebrating the New Year on Bourbon Street. He is seen wearing a light brown long coat, a dark-coloured button-down shirt and blue jeans.
NY Post reporter Jennie Taer gives us tour of Shamsud-Din Jabbar's Houston home
— RT (@RT_com) January 3, 2025
Seems like a 'model terrorist house' - all the evidence out in the open
Weirdest thing to us is that kind of journo access so soon after major terrorist attack pic.twitter.com/tG3LGKyP5B
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden that Jabbar was aligned with ISIS. In one of the videos shot by him before the crime, Jabbar too claims to have joined the terrorist organisation "before this summer" and showed off his last will and testament.
Investigators also claim the 42-year-old man was ideologically aligned with ISIS and that specifically chose Bourbon Street as the target of his monstrous act of terror.
However, Biden claimed he seemed to have acted alone. "Today, the FBI briefed me that, as of now, we have no information that anyone else is involved in the attack. They've established that the attacker was the same person who planted the explosives in those ice coolers in two nearby locations in the French Quarter just a few hours before he rammed into the crowd with his vehicle," Biden told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
The President said Jabbar had a remote detonator in his vehicle to set off the ice chests inside which he planted the IEDs. The FBI is also investigating any foreign or domestic contacts or connections that could possibly be relevant to the attack, said the president.
The investigators are also probing whether or not there's any connection between the New Orleans attack and the explosion in Las Vegas. "As of now they've just been briefed, they have not found any evidence of such a connection thus far. I've directed them to keep looking. The individual who rented the truck that exploded in Las Vegas also served on active duty US Army, and the FBI is working with the Department of Defense on investigating, including the service member's possible motives and all those he served with him with things he'd say and do. I directed my team to accelerate these investigations so we have answers to our unanswered questions," Biden said.
