By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and JEFF MARTIN
An official with the Islamic State group has been detained in Iraq, suspected of being concerned with inciting the pickup truck-ramming assault in New Orleans that killed greater than a dozen individuals celebrating the beginning of 2025, Iraqi authorities stated.
Iraqi authorities had obtained requests from the U.S. to assist in the investigation of the assault within the predawn hours of New Years Day within the famed French Quarter of New Orleans, Iraqi judicial officers stated.
A U.S. Military veteran driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Islamic State group sped down Bourbon Road, operating over some victims and ramming others, authorities stated on the time. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recognized the driving force as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, and stated it was working to find out any potential associations with terrorist organizations.
After driving his pickup truck onto a sidewalk round a police automotive blocking an entrance to Bourbon Road and putting the New Yr’s revelers, he crashed into development tools, authorities stated. He then opened fireplace on cops and Bourbon Road crowds, and was shot and killed by the officers, authorities stated. Investigators discovered weapons and what gave the impression to be an improvised explosive system within the automobile, together with different gadgets elsewhere within the French Quarter.
Iraqi officers stated that Baghdad’s Al-Karkh Investigative Court docket specified the suspect who was later detained and turned out to be a member of the Islamic State group’s international operations workplace.
The officers, who spoke on situation of anonymity in keeping with rules, didn’t launch the title of the suspect, solely saying that he’s an Iraqi citizen. The officers stated the person will probably be placed on trial in accordance with the nation’s anti-terrorism regulation, including that Iraq is dedicated to worldwide cooperation in combating terrorism.
“The FBI’s investigation into the New Yr’s Day terrorist assault in New Orleans stays energetic and ongoing,” the FBI stated in a press release Tuesday.
“Whereas we proceed to work with our regulation enforcement companions, each within the U.S. and internationally, primarily based on the knowledge so far, we proceed to consider that Shamsud Din-Jabbar acted alone in finishing up the assault on Bourbon Road,” the company stated, saying that anybody with data is inspired to contact them.
Regardless of its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, Islamic State nonetheless has sleeper cells that perform lethal assault in each international locations in addition to different components of the world.
The group as soon as attracted tens of 1000’s of fighters and supporters from all over the world to return to Syria and Iraq, and at its peak dominated an space half the dimensions of the UK and was infamous for its brutality. It beheaded civilians, slaughtered 1,700 captured Iraqi troopers in a brief interval, and enslaved and raped 1000’s of girls from the Yazidi neighborhood, one in all Iraq’s oldest non secular minorities.
Abdul-Zahra reported from Baghdad. Martin reported from Atlanta.
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