What is ISIS? Terror group flag seen at New Orleans truck attack
FBI now believes no one helped Jabbar in attack
The FBI delivered an update on an attack early Wednesday in which a U.S. Army veteran drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans, killing 15 people. The driver 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, investigators said. The FBI identified the driver, who died in a shootout with police, as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran from Texas. The FBI on Wednesday said they believe Jabbar worked alone, revising earlier comments. Officials have not yet released the names of the 15 people killed in the attack, but their families and friends have started sharing their stories. About 30 people were injured.
NEW ORLEANS - The FBI said that it has recovered the black flag of the Islamic State (IS) group from the truck used by an American from Texas, who crashed into New Year’s Eve partygoers in New Orlean’s French Quarter, killing 15 people.
The ongoing investigation is expected to examine any potential connections or inspiration that the driver Shamsud-Din Jabbar may have drawn from IS or at least 19 affiliated groups around the world.
President Joe Biden revealed on Wednesday evening that the FBI informed him Jabbar had posted videos on social media just hours before the attack, suggesting he was influenced by IS.
What is ISIS?
The violent group goes by IS, ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and began as a breakaway group from al-Qaida.
Under leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, IS had seized stunning amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria by 2014. Within territory under its control, it killed, raped and otherwise abused members of other faiths and targeted fellow Sunni Muslims who strayed from its harsh interpretation of Islam.
Police checkpoints on and around Bourbon Street, after a vehicle plowed into New Year crowds at a tourist district local authorities said in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States on January 1, 2025. (Credit: Patt Little/Anadolu via Getty Images)
By 2019, a U.S.-led military intervention had driven IS from the cities and towns of its self-claimed state. Al-Baghdadi killed himself, and two children near him, that same year, detonating an explosive vest as U.S. forces closed in on him.
Currently, the main IS is a scattered and much-weakened organization working to regain fighting strength and territory in Syria and Iraq. Experts warn that the group is reconstituting itself there.
Black flag of IS explained
Typically, it's a black banner with white Arabic letters expressing a central tenet of the Islamic faith.
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Countless Muslims around the world see the coercive violence of the group as a perversion of their religion.
Previous attacks by ISIS
The New Orleans rampage reflects the deadliest IS-inspired attack on U.S. soil in several years.
Other attacks over the past decade include a 2015 shooting rampage by a husband-and-wife team who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and a 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who fatally shot 49 people, pledged his allegiance on a 911 call to al-Baghdadi and raged against the "filthy ways of the West."
But over the past year, FBI officials have warned about a significantly elevated threat of international terrorism after Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023 and the resulting Israeli strikes in Gaza.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, who is set to resign at the end of the Biden administration, told The Associated Press in an August interview that he was "hard pressed to think of a time in my career where so many different kinds of threats are all elevated at once."