FBI reveals new details about New Orleans attacker

Washington: Shamsud Din Jabbar traveled to Cairo and Ontario before the assault and wore Meta glasses to film the street, according to fresh information released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the New Orleans assailant.

“We have tracked that Jabbar traveled to Cairo, Egypt, from June 22 until July 3 of 2023,” the FBI said in a news statement. A few days later, on July 10, he took a plane to Ontario, Canada, and on July 13, he went back to the United States. Where he traveled, who he met, and how those excursions could or might not be related to his behavior here in New Orleans are all being answered by our agents. Additionally, we’ve learned that Jabbar visited New Orleans at least twice in the months before the attacks: once in October and again in November.

It also said, “Based on current knowledge, Jabbar began staying in a New Orleans rental house on October 30, 2024. He spent at least two days in the city. At that moment, Jabbar was riding a bicycle around the French Quarter while wearing Meta glasses to take footage. Despite having a similar appearance to ordinary glasses, meta glasses enable hands-free picture and video recording. Additionally, they enable the user to maybe broadcast their video live.

The FBI also disclosed that while Jabbar wore a set of Meta glasses during the Bourbon Street assault, he chose not to use them to broadcast his acts live.

Prior to crashing his car into the crown on Bourbon Street, the New Orleans assailant put improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the French Quarter. US President Joe Biden had already announced earlier on January 2 that the attacker had a remote detonator in his car to detonate the IEDs.

Jabbar put the two IEDs in the coolers, and the FBI found them, CNN said.

“They have shown that the assailant is the same one who, only hours before he crashed his car into the crowd, put the explosives in the ice coolers at two neighboring places in the French Quarter. Biden had said, “They determined that he had a remote detonator in his car to detonate those two ice chests.”
Notably, the incident on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans claimed the lives of 15 people, including the assailant.

The perpetrator of this “act of terrorism,” according to the FBI, was an ISIS follower. In a number of films he uploaded to the internet, the suspect acknowledged his sympathy for ISIS, and an ISIS flag was discovered in his car.