New Orleans attacker ‘acted alone in war on disbelievers

FBI find no link with Cybertruck explosion at Trump hotel

- ALASTAIR JAMIESON

A US army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans is thought to have acted alone, and the FBI has said there is no definitive link with the suspect in the Tesla explosion in Las Vegas, despite both having military experience.

The bureau said Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, from Texas, posted five videos on Facebook before the attack, in which he proclaimed his support for Isis and said his imminent rampage in the French Quarter was part of a “war on disbelievers”.

“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” said Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division.

The attack killed 14 new year revellers; Jabbar was fatally shot in a firefight with police after steering his speeding truck around a barricade. It was the deadliest Isis-inspired assault on US soil in years, laying bare what federal officials have warned is a resurgent threat from international terrorism.

But Mr Raia said there is no indication of a connection between the events in New Orleans and a Tesla Cybertruck explosion on Wednesday outside Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel. That explosion injured seven, only weeks before Mr Trump is due to return to the White House on 20 January.

The driver of the Tesla, Matthew Livelsberger, also died, though it is not yet clear whether he was killed by the explosion or by a gunshot wound to his head prior to the blast.