A U.S. veteran drove a truck flying an Islamic State flag into a crowd, killing 14 people
12 hours ago
- U.S. authorities are concerned that the New Orleans attacks on January 1, a New Year’s Day attack, could lead to similar incidents.
- Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a truck into a crowd flying an Islamic State flag, killing 14 people.
- The FBI knows that large, heavy vehicles like trucks are easy to obtain and have the potential to cause extensive damage.
A New Orleans terrorist attack killed more than a dozen people on New Orleans, and U.S. authorities fear a series of similar incidents could follow.
Late last week, the FBI issued an announcement saying that U.S. Army veteran Shamsuddin Jabbar’s decision to drive into revelers was 100 percent inspired by the Islamic State. The 42-year-old man from Texas drove a truck flying an Islamic State flag into a crowd, killing 14 people and injuring many others.
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According to Reuters, the text of the announcement said that the FBI and other federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center were “concerned about the possibility of copycat or retaliatory attacks.”
Authorities are particularly concerned about the ease with which terrorists can gain access to large, heavy vehicles such as trucks, allowing them to wreak havoc. Trucks are widely available in the United States and can be easily purchased or leased. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reportedly rented his Ford F-150 Lightning from Turo, and the Tesla Cybertrack that exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas a week ago was Matthew Livesberg The rental website Livelsberger used to purchase.
New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar bypassed a barricade in New Orleans’ French Quarter during New Orleans’ New Year celebrations at 03:15. She told CBS News he was driving at a “very high speed” with the apparent intention of hitting as many people as possible.
When the truck finally stopped, Jabbar jumped out with a gun and continued the attack. He fired at the police, who shot him dead on the spot. Jabbar also placed two coolers filled with improvised explosives on the city’s streets, but they failed to detonate.
The FBI warned in its bulletin that such terrorist attacks “may remain attractive to aspiring attackers because of the easy availability of vehicles and the low threshold of skills required to carry out an attack.”
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