Biden to visit New Orleans, meet victims of ISIS-inspired terror ramming

US President Joe Biden will travel to New Orleans next week to meet the families of victims of a deadly truck-ramming attack that killed 14 people, the White House announced Friday.

On Monday, the president and his wife Jill “will grieve with the families and community members impacted by the tragic attack on January 1 and meet with officials on the ground,” the White House said in a statement. After visiting Louisiana, Biden will travel to California for an event in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Biden said Thursday that he had ordered an “accelerated” investigation into the attack. He also praised the spirit of the people of New Orleans.

The announcement of Biden’s visit came as US intelligence agencies expressed concern about copycat vehicle-ramming attacks, and questions arose over possible lapses in the southern city’s security arrangements.

Meanwhile, details emerged about the perpetrator, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US Army veteran who had worked at auditing giant Deloitte, and renewed his Islamic faith after a string of divorces and business failures.

The FBI said Thursday that Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native, was “100%” inspired by the Islamic State militant group to drive a truck into New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens of others, including two Israeli tourists. Jabbar was subsequently killed in a shootout with police.

He had also planted two homemade bombs in the city, authorities said, though they did not go off.

FBI officials said Jabbar had posted five videos to his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he aligned himself with IS. Authorities also found an Islamic State flag on the truck used in the attack early Wednesday.

The attack took place on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street, in the city’s French Quarter. The crime scene — about a mile’s walk from the Superdome, where the annual Sugar Bowl college football was set to take place hours later — gradually cleared so it could be reopened to the public on Thursday.

The game was deferred by 36 hours and took place under heavy security, without incident. It was the first time the Sugar Bowl had been postponed in its 91-year history.

On Thursday, tens of thousands of fans flocked to the Superdome to watch the game, which Notre Dame University’s Fighting Irish won 23-10 to the University of Georgia’s Bulldogs.

“It was a lot of fun. It felt safe,” said Shannon Horsey, a Georgia fan in her 40s who lives in Austin, Texas. “Coming in they searched my bag thoroughly. So I felt like, OK, they’re really paying attention.”

“We can see the presence up on the rooftop,” she added, pointing at a sniper above Champions Square. “So, I kind of felt like this is probably one of the safest places to be in the city.”

Vehicle barriers were being repaired; authorities fear copycat attacks

The New York Times reported Thursday that in a November 2019 review, ordered by the group that runs the French Quarter, security firm Interfor International urged immediate repairs to Bourbon Street’s vehicle barriers, which did “not appear to work,” and warned that “the two modes of terror attack likely to be used are vehicular ramming and active shooting.”

New Orleans police said that the city had begun repairing the barriers in November and that the works were ongoing as of Wednesday, when the attack took place.

Don Aviv, Interfor’s chief executive, told the Times that the French Quarter was “the perfect target” and the attack there “should be no surprise to anyone” with experience in securing such areas.

According to a bulletin of US intelligence agencies published Friday, the New Orleans attack was the seventh attack in the United States since 2001 that was inspired by a foreign extremist organization.

The bulletin, published by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the US National Counterterrorism Center and issued to US law enforcement agencies, said the intelligence agencies “are concerned about possible copycat or retaliatory attacks,” due to the “low skill threshold necessary to conduct an attack.”

The use of “edged weapons” and firearms has been more common in such attacks but vehicles could present a growing threat, said the bulletin, which was reviewed by Reuters. It noted that in many previous cases, attackers who rammed vehicles into crowds were armed and continued their attacks with guns or edged weapons.

Killer didn’t fit classic ISIS profile, hadn’t shown signs of radicalization

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated terrorism cases and is on an advisory council to US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said Jabbar did not fit the typical profile of those radicalized by Islamic State.

Jabbar served for 10 years in the US Army and was in his 40s, Soufan noted, explaining that people who fall prey to Islamic State recruitment are typically much younger.

“This is a guy who … went from being a patriot to being an ISIS terrorist,” said Soufan.

The terrorist’s half-brother, Abdur Jabbar, said in an interview that Jabbar had abandoned Islam in his 20s or 30s, but had recently renewed his faith.

Abdur Jabbar told Reuters in Beaumont, Texas, where Jabbar was born and raised, that he had no idea when his half-brother became radicalized.

The 24-year-old said his older brother had increasingly isolated himself from family and friends in the last few years but he hadn’t seen any signs of radicalization when they talked. He said it had been a few months since he had seen his brother in-person and a few weeks since they talked on the phone.

“Nothing about his demeanor seemed to be off. He didn’t seem to be angry or anything like that. He was just his calm, well-mannered, well-tempered self,” the younger brother said.

Three-time divorcee had trouble adjusting to civilian life

Army, court and other public records piece together a picture of a man who had been stationed or lived in multiple states including North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Alaska, had been married multiple times and seemed to be experiencing financial difficulties as he tried to adjust to civilian life.

Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.

A spokesperson for Georgia State University confirmed Jabbar attended the school from 2015-2017 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems in 2017.

He had been married at least three times over the last two decades and had at least three children who were mentioned in divorce and custody agreements. His two most recent marriages, in Georgia and Texas, each lasted about three years, according to court documents.

Dwayne Marsh, who is married to one of Jabbar’s ex-wives, told The New York Times that Jabbar had been acting erratically in recent months. Marsh said he and his wife had stopped allowing the two daughters she shared with Jabbar to spend time with him.

Divorce records also show Jabbar faced a deteriorating financial situation in January 2022. Jabbar said he was $27,000 behind on house payments and wanted to quickly finalize the divorce.

His businesses were struggling, too. One business, Blue Meadow Properties LLC, lost about $28,000 in 2021. Two other businesses he started, Jabbar Real Estate Holdings LLC and BDQ L3C, weren’t worth anything. He had also accumulated $16,000 in credit card debt because of expenses like attorneys fees, according to the email.

Court documents show he was making about $10,000 a month doing business development and other work for the consulting firm Deloitte in 2022.

On Wednesday, police blocked access to a Houston neighborhood where Jabbar’s last address was listed, a small white mobile home in a gated community where ducks and goats were roaming in the grass. On Thursday, the FBI said it had finished a search of the area but did not release more details.

Despite the tumult indicated by court documents, Abdur Jabbar said his half-brother hadn’t shown any outward signs of distress or anger about his relationships.

“I think he blamed himself more than anything for his divorces,” said the younger Jabbar. “And he never was bitter toward his ex-wives.”