Sunday, 05 January 2025
Sunday, 05 January 2025
Law enforcement is investigating whether the New Orleans truck attack in which at least 15 people were killed was connected to the Tesla truck fire in front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, in which one person was killed, US President Joe Biden said.
Biden said Wednesday evening that the FBI had found videos that the New Orleans driver had posted to social media hours before the attack, in which he said he was inspired by the Islamic State group and expressed a desire to kill.
In Nevada, firework mortars and camp fuel canisters were found stuffed into the back of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside US President-elect Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel early Wednesday, killing a suspect inside the vehicle and sparking an intense investigation into possible terrorism.
New Orleans attacker served in US Army
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old Texas man accused of crashing the truck into New Year's Day revelers in New Orleans, served in the US Army for 13 years including a deployment to Afghanistan, the army said.
Federal officials and local law enforcement in New Orleans said that Jabbar did not act alone and that they are looking for accomplices.
The FBI said Jabbar had an Islamic State flag on his truck. The Islamic State, or ISIS, is a Sunni Muslim militant group which has carried out attacks throughout the world.
Jabbar died at the scene in a shootout with police, officials said.
Jabbar served in the Army as a human resource specialist and information technology specialist from 2007 until 2015. He then joined the Army Reserve as an IT Specialist until 2020, holding the rank of staff sergeant at the end of service, according to an army official.
Jabbar was deployed in Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010, the official said.
In addition to serving in the Army, Jabbar enlisted in the navy in August 2004 under a delayed entry programme but was discharged a month later, a US navy official told Reuters.
Corporate records show that Jabbar got involved in a series of businesses in recent years.
In a promotional video for a real estate business posted to YouTube in 2020, a man with the same name as the suspect said his time in the military had taught him the importance of great service and taking everything seriously.
"I've taken those skills and applied them to my career as a real estate agent, where I feel like what really sets me apart from other agents is my ability to be able to one be a fierce negotiator," he said, encouraging clients to give him a call.
In the video, the man introduced himself as a manager at Blue Meadow Properties LLC, a Texas-based company whose licence expired in 2022. He was registered as a real estate sales agent for four years through February 2023, records show.
He said he was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas.
Firework mortars, fuel canisters in Tesla truck
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and Clark County Fire Department officials said that a person died inside the futuristic-looking Tesla pickup truck and seven people nearby suffered minor injuries.
By late Wednesday afternoon, authorities were still working to get the body out of the vehicle and start processing the evidence inside.
“Our number one goal is to ensure that we have the proper identification of the subject involved in this incident,” said Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge for the FBI's Las Vegas office, “Following that, our second objective is to determine whether this was an act of terrorism or not.”
Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said authorities know who rented the truck with the Turo app in Colorado, but are not releasing the name until investigators determine if it is the same person who died. A Turo spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request by the Associated Press for comment.
McMahill said video captured at Telsa charging stations provided by CEO Elon Musk helped authorities track the vehicle's journey, arriving in Las Vegas about 7.30am, then driving about an hour later into the valet area of the Trump International Hotel, where it sat 15 to 20 seconds before the explosion occurred.
Video presented at an afternoon news conference showed a tumble of charred fireworks mortars, cannisters and other explosive devices crowded into the back of the pickup. The truck bed walls were still intact because the blast shot straight up rather than to the sides.
Elon Musk cites bomb in truck
Musk said Wednesday afternoon on X that “we have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”
Musk said in an earlier post on the platform that his entire senior term was investigating the explosion, adding, “We've never seen anything like this.”
Musk has recently become a member of Trump's inner circle and attended a New Year's Eve party at the Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that was not attended by the President-elect.
“This is a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it's the Trump Tower,” McMahill said when reporters asked about possible political connections. “So, there's obviously things to be concerned about and it's something we continue to look at.”
Investigators probe New Orleans-Las Vegas link
The truck explosion came hours after the New Orleans attack.
“We are absolutely investigating any connectivity to what happened in New Orleans as well as other attacks that have been occurring around the world,” said Sheriff McMahill. “We aren't ruling anything out.”
In Las Vegas, witness Ana Bruce, visiting from Brazil, said she heard three explosions.
“The first one where we saw the fire, the second one, I guess, was the battery or something like that, and the third was the big one that smoked the entire area and was the moment when everyone was told to evacuate and stay away,” Bruce said.
Her travel companion, Alcides Antunes, showed video he took of flames lapping the sides of the silver-coloured vehicle.
The 64-story hotel is just off the Las Vegas Strip and across the street from the Fashion Show Las Vegas shopping mall.
Eric Trump, a son of the president-elect and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, posted about the fire on the social media platform X. He praised the fire department and local law enforcement “for their swift response and professionalism.”
