New Orleans (US), Jan 2: A US Army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans, killing 15 people, had posted videos to social media hours before the carnage saying he was inspired by the Islamic State group and expressing a desire to kill, the president said.
The FBI said it was investigating early Wednesday’s attack in which the driver steered around a police blockade and slammed into revellers before being shot dead by police as a terrorist act and did not believe he acted alone.
Investigators found guns and what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the vehicle – which bore the flag of the Islamic State group – along with other explosive devices elsewhere in the city’s famed French Quarter.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening that the FBI found the videos the driver posted to social media. He called the attack a “despicable” and “heinous act.” The rampage turned festive Bourbon Street into a macabre scene of maimed victims, bloodied bodies and pedestrians fleeing for safety inside nightclubs and restaurants. In addition to the dead, dozens of people were hurt. A college football playoff game at the nearby Superdome was postponed until Thursday.
The attack is the latest example of a vehicle being used as a weapon to carry out mass violence and the deadliest IS-inspired assault on US soil in years.
The driver “defeated” safety measures in place to protect pedestrians, Kirkpatrick said, and was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.” The FBI identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a US citizen from Texas, and said it was working to determine any potential associations with terrorist organisations. (PTI)
