New Orleans truck attack: Biden says suspect expressed ‘desire to kill’ – latest updates | New Orleans

Two Mexican nationals injured but in stable condition

The Mexico foreign affairs ministry said US officials confirmed two Mexican nationals were injured in the New Orleans attack that killed at least 15, but are in stable condition, the New York Times reports.

Summary

Joe Biden: Suspect expressed ‘desire to kill’ on social media

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who has been identified as the suspect in the New Orleans attack that killed at least 15 people, was having financial difficulties in recent years, according to a divorce records review by the Associated Press.

The documents suggested that Jabbar was $27,000 behind on house payments and that he was trying to quickly finalize his divorce, the AP reported. In a January 2022 email to the attorney of his ex-wife, he wrote: “I have exhausted all means of bringing the loan current other than a loan modification, leaving us no alternative but to sell the house or allow it to go into foreclosure.”

He also had struggling businesses. Blue Meadow Properties LLC, that lost roughly $28,000 over the previous year, and two others he started – Jabbar Real Estate Holdings LLC and BDQ L3C – had no value, according to the AP.

His divorce was finalized in September 2024.

The FBI said Jabbar shot at police before officers shot him dead after his vehicle attack into a crowd on New Year’s Day.

The New Orleans attack, which officials are investigating as an act of terrorism, appears to be the deadliest mass attack in the US in more than a year, according to the New York Times.

Officials say at least 15 people were killed and more than 30 injured after a vehicle flying an Islamic State (IS) flag drove into a crowd in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

In October 2023, a 40-year-old gunman in Maine killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar. That shooter died by suicide and was later found to have evidence of traumatic brain injuries.

More details are emerging about the suspect in the New Orleans attack.

An army spokesperson said Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, served in both an active duty and reserve capacity. He joined the army in 2006, and was deployed in 2009 to Afghanistan, where he worked as an administrative clerk.

In 2015 he joined the army reserve, and was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in July 2020. He also worked in information technology.

He was charged with two minor infractions, for a misdemeanor theft offense in 2002, and driving with an invalid license in 2005. On Wednesday, the FBI released an undated, low resolution mugshot of Jabbar. It is not known if it is related to either of these two charges.

CNN reported on Wednesday that investigators are looking at a series of video recordings that Jabbar reportedly made prior to Wednesday’s attack, in which he was killed in a shootout with police.

The network said the recordings appeared to have been made while driving at night, and although the suspect is not visible, authorities believe the recordings were made as he drove from Texas to Louisiana, although the exact timing is not yet clear.

According to CNN, the recordings reference his divorce and how he had at first planned to gather his family for a “celebration” with the intention of killing them, two officials who had been briefed on the material in the recordings said.

The suspect also talked about how he changed his plans and said that he joined the Islamic State. According to the FBI, an IS flag was attached to the vehicle he used in the attack.

Here are some images from New Orleans, Louisiana, and Houston, Texas, in the aftermath of the New Year’s Day vehicle attack, sent to us over the news wires:

CNN is reporting that authorities appear to be backtracking from earlier, albeit unofficial assertions that three men and one woman were reportedly captured on surveillance video placing improvised explosive devices in New Orleans.

Law enforcement sources told the network earlier on Wednesday that investigators had reviewed footage purportedly showing the four individuals they believed at the time were involved in placing devices in the French Quarter.

The Associated Press also reported it had obtained an intelligence bulletin from Louisiana state police making the same claim.

However, while federal investigators are still trying to determine if other people were involved in assisting the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, plan or execute the New Year’s Day attack, they no longer believe the people reportedly seen in the video were involved, CNN said.

New Orleans attack death toll rises to 15

College football officials have posted official confirmation that the Allstate Sugar Bowl, which this year doubles as the national championship quarter-final between Notre Dame and the University of Georgia, will kick-off at 3pm CT at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

The game was originally scheduled to have taken place on Wednesday afternoon, but was postponed for 24 hours in the wake of the New Year’s Day vehicle attack in the city’s French Quarter that killed at least 10 people and injured dozens more.

The Associated Press has been looking into why an anti-terrorism security system designed to temporarily prevent vehicles driving through New Orleans’s French Quarter was not in operation at the time of this morning’s attack.

It found that many of the adjustable barriers at intersections in the Quarter, stainless-steel columns known as bollards, were absent because they were in the process of being replaced during a rolling maintenance program that began in November and was scheduled to be completed before the Super Bowl in the city on 9 February.

Instead, in busy times for pedestrians such as the New Year’s Day celebrations, police cruisers were positioned at entrances to the Quarter. Surveillance footage posted to X on Wednesday showed what is believed to be the suspect’s pickup truck driving past one of the police vehicles and accelerating along Bourbon Street before plowing into the crowd.

City officials have not confirmed whether the intersection at which the suspect entered the Quarter was actively under construction, or if the replacement project created a vulnerability, the AP said.