US Military veteran additionally visited town twice in months main as much as truck assault, legislation enforcement officers say.
Authorities in the USA are investigating the potential significance of abroad journeys made by the person answerable for driving a truck into New 12 months’s revellers in New Orleans, legislation enforcement officers have mentioned.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US Military veteran who proclaimed his assist for ISIL (ISIS) in movies posted on-line earlier than the assault, visited Egypt and Canada in the summertime of 2023, an FBI official mentioned on Sunday.
“Our brokers are getting solutions as to the place he went, whom he met with, how these journeys could or could not tie into his actions in our metropolis,” Lyonel Myrthil, particular agent answerable for the bureau’s New Orleans subject workplace, advised reporters.
Jabbar additionally made a minimum of two journeys to New Orleans, in October and November, officers mentioned.
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 sensible glasses, in keeping with police.
Myrthil mentioned Jabbar was sporting the glasses, however didn’t flip them on, when he carried out the New 12 months’s Day assault, which killed 14 folks and injured 35 others.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia mentioned that each one proof indicated that Jabbar, a US citizen, had acted alone in finishing up the assault, although investigators have been wanting into his contacts in and outdoors the US.
“We’ve not seen any indications of an confederate in the USA, however we’re nonetheless wanting into potential associates within the US and outdoors of our borders,” Raia advised 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 keeping with authorities.
US President Joe Biden is ready to go to New Orleans with first girl Jill Biden on Monday to pay his respects to the victims of the assault.
