• FBI identified Shamsud-Din Jabbar as the suspect in the New Orleans truck attack.
• Jabbar, now deceased, was a US citizen from Texas and had a criminal record.
• At least 15 people were confirmed dead, and dozens more were injured.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified the suspect in Wednesday's deadly attack in New Orleans as Shamsud-Din Jabbar.

The agency said Jabbar, who was confirmed dead after a shootout with police, was a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas. His actions are being investigated as a terrorist attack.

At least 15 people are confirmed dead, and dozens more were injured, after the suspect drove a truck into crowds on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. on New Year's Day. Two police officers were shot but are in stable condition.

The FBI said an ISIS flag, as well as weapons and a "potential" improvised explosive device, were found in the Ford F-150 pick-up truck Jabbar used.

It added other IEDs were found in the French Quarter, and the agency is investigating Jabbar's potential connection to terrorist organizations.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told NBC News that "multiple individuals" were involved, and that they had rented a house from Airbnb.

"There was a house fire in New Orleans this morning that was connected to this event where we believe the IEDs were being made," she added.

President Joe Biden said in a press conference that, hours before the attack, Jabbar had posted videos "inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill."

Jabbar's criminal record, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety and viewed by Business Insider, shows two prior arrests in 2002 and 2005.

The first was for theft of $50-$500. The other was for driving with an invalid license. Both were classified as misdemeanors.

FBI Assistant Special Agent Alethea Duncan said in a press conference that the FBI does not believe Jabbar acted alone. She did not specify how many additional suspects the agency is investigating.

"We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates," Duncan said. "We're asking anyone who has information, video, or pictures to provide it to the FBI."

She later added that Jabbar was an Army veteran, and the FBI believes he was honorably discharged.

US military spokespersons told media on Wednesday evening that Jabbar had served in the Army from 2007 to 2015, during which he was deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010.

He filled information technology and human resource roles at the time and was later an information technology specialist in the Army Reserve from 2016 until 2020. He left the military as a staff sergeant.

Jabbar also graduated from Georgia State University in 2017 after studying information technology, per an online résumé reviewed by CNN.

Sean Keenan, a freelance journalist for The New York Times, reported that he had interviewed Jabbar in 2015 for Georgia State University's newspaper. Jabbar told Keenan that he had difficulty adjusting back to civilian life — particularly with getting used to non-military speech.

"You may have a lot of skills and training from the Army," Jabbar was quoted as saying in the article. "But you may not be able to speak the language to really translate it and be understood when you apply for a civilian job."

Jabbar had also complained that bureaucracy in the Department of Veteran Affairs meant he might not receive his benefits if he made small mistakes on his paperwork.

Based on Jabbar's resume, CNN reported that he worked at Deloitte and Accenture, two of the biggest consultancies. A Deloitte spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement that he worked in a "staff-level role" since his 2021 hiring.

"We are shocked to learn of reports today that the individual identified as a suspect had any association with our firm," the Deloitte statement said. "Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation."

Accenture did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Jabbar also held a real estate license in Texas from 2019 to 2023. He took classes in real estate from 2018 to 2021, per the Texas Real Estate Commission.

Citing court documents, CNN reported he had been divorced twice, although The New York Times reported him as having only separated from his second wife.

His second wife had a temporary restraining order against him granted in 2020, per CNN.

According to the Times, Jabbar was divorced from his first wife in 2012, who has forbidden their two daughters from seeing him. Dwayne Marsh, her new husband, said that in recent months he had started acting strangely.

Jabbar's brother, Abdur, told the outlet that Jabbar had grown up as a Christian but converted to Islam many years ago.

"What he did does not represent Islam," the brother said. "This is more some type of radicalization, not religion."

Chris Pousson, a retired Air Force veteran who went to school with Jabbar and reconnected with him in 2015, told the outlet that he remembered Jabbar as "quiet, reserved, and really, really smart."

Jabbar was always polite and well-dressed, he said, and although he noticed Jabbar writing increasingly religious posts on Facebook around 2015, the latest news is "a complete 180 from the quiet, reserved person I knew."

Turo, a carsharing company, confirmed to BI that Jabbar used a truck rented through its app to carry out the attack and that it is "actively partnering with the FBI."

"We are not currently aware of anything in this guest's background that would have identified him as a trust and safety threat to us at the time of the reservation," a Turo spokesperson said.

The attack comes ahead of three major events in New Orleans, including the college football Sugar Bowl game, which was scheduled for January 1. Officials said it has been postponed 24 hours.

The city also has its annual Mardi Gras festivities starting on January 6 and the 59th Super Bowl scheduled for February 9.

• Authorities say a driver deliberately plowed into a crowd of people in New Orleans early Wednesday.
• 15 people were killed, and at least 35 more were injured.
• The suspect is a 42-year-old named Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, the FBI now says.

The man accused of plowing into a crowd in the heart of New Orleans in an ISIS-inspired attack that killed 15 people acted alone, an FBI official said Thursday.

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect in the attack as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a 42-year-old US Army veteran, and have described it as a premeditated act of terrorism.

Officials say he killed 14 people and injured at least 35 more others after driving into the crowd with a rented truck early on New Year's Day and started shooting before being killed in a shootout with police.

At a press conference Thursday, Christopher Raia, an FBI counterterrorism official involved in the investigation, walked back earlier claims that other people may have assisted Jabbar with the attack.

He said officials have since reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage and other records, and believe Jabbar acted alone.

"We do not assess, at this point, that anyone else has been involved in this attack except for Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar," Raia said at the New Orleans press conference.

Raia also said investigators have not found any links between the New Orleans attack and a Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas outside a Trump hotel, while cautioning the investigations into each event were still in their early stages. Both trucks were rented through the vehicle-sharing app Turo, and officials say the perpetrator in the Las Vegas attack was an active-duty Army soldier.

"At this point, there's is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas," Raia said.

The truck slammed through Bourbon Street

New Orleans was still reeling Thursday after the driver, later identified as Jabbar, drove a rented Ford pickup truck through the crowd on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Several improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were also found near the scene of the attack. An ISIS flag was found in the vehicle's trunk, according to Raia.

Raia said that authorities initially believed other people may have been involved in the attack because of witnesses who said they saw people setting down coolers containing the IEDs.

But surveillance footage showed that Jabbar set down coolers containing two IEDs himself, Raia said. According to Raia, footage showed other people later "checking out" the coolers, but they did not seem to have any role in the attack. Reports of additional IEDs could not be substantiated, Raia said.

Officials had also earlier said that a fire in a New Orleans house, which was rented from Airbnb, may have been where the IEDs were assembled. But authorities said at Thursday's press conference that they now believe the fire is likely unrelated to the attack.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said "information changes" as the investigation continues.

"No one dumps a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and solves it in five seconds," he said at the press conference Thursday.

Jabbar's criminal record, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety and viewed by Business Insider, shows two prior arrests in 2002 and 2005. The first was for theft, while the other was for driving with an invalid license. Both were classified as misdemeanors.

Support for ISIS posted on Facebook

At Thursday's press conference, Raia said Jabbar rented the Ford truck in Houston on December 30 and headed to New Orleans on December 31.

He said Jabbar made a series of Facebook posts during his journey expressing support for ISIS and posting a last will and testament.

Raia also said that investigators believe Jabbar joined ISIS before this past summer.

In a statement to Business Insider, the car-sharing app Turo said Jabbar used its service to rent the truck.

"We are heartbroken to learn that one of our host's vehicles was involved in this awful incident," the statement reads. "We are actively partnering with the FBI. We are not currently aware of anything in this guest's background that would have identified him as a trust and safety threat to us at the time of the reservation."

Starting Wednesday evening, Texas authorities performed a search of a location in Houston believed to be linked to Jabbar, the FBI said.

At Thursday's press conference, officials said they had obtained two laptops and three phones connected to Jabbar, which they have been examining.

The agency said it's made no arrests but had deployed specialized personnel, including a SWAT team, crisis negotiators, and a bomb squad, to the Houston location.

The search finished early Thursday, with the agency saying that it could not release more information, but that "there is no threat to residents in that area."

Superintendent Anne E. Kirkpatrick of the New Orleans Police Department said during an earlier press conference that a man drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street "at a very fast pace." Kirkpatrick said the man drove into the crowd intentionally.

She also said the driver shot two police officers, who she said were in stable condition.

Kirkpatrick said it appeared that most of those injured were locals rather than tourists.

Eyewitness accounts

NOLA Ready, the city's emergency preparedness campaign, had initially said there was "a mass casualty incident involving a vehicle that drove into a large crowd on Canal and Bourbon Street."

Kevin Garcia, a 22-year-old who was present at the time, told CNN, "All I seen was a truck slamming into everyone on the left side of Bourbon sidewalk."

He said that "a body came flying at me," and that he heard gunshots.

One witness told CBS that a driver plowed into the crowd on Bourbon Street at high speed and that the driver got out and started firing a weapon, with the police firing back.

Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana said on X on Wednesday that a "horrific act of violence took place on Bourbon Street earlier this morning."

"Please join Sharon and I in praying for all the victims and first responders on scene," he wrote, referring to his wife. "I urge all near the scene to avoid the area."

Bourbon Street, in the city's French Quarter, is a famous party destination.

Some streets in and around the French Quarter were due to be closed for New Year's celebrations, with Canal Street expected to stay open unless traffic got too bad, the local outlet Fox 8 WVUE-TV reported.

As a result of the attack, the Sugar Bowl football game between the University of Georgia and the University of Notre Dame was postponed from Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon.

Local officials tried to assure the public that the city was now safe, with additional law enforcement deployed everywhere.

"The city of New Orleans is not only ready for game day today but also to host large-scale events," New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Thursday.

• Elon Musk criticized the F-35 program on Sunday.
• Musk's comments come as he prepares to advise Trump on government efficiency in 2025.
• The GAO expects the F-35 program to cost about $2 trillion over its entire lifespan.

Elon Musk, who's set to start advising President-elect Donald Trump on government efficiency in 2025, criticized the Pentagon's F-35 program in two social media posts on Sunday.

The billionaire reposted a video montage of coordinated drone swarms on X, writing: "Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35."

He added a "trash can" emoji to his post.

When another X user defended the F-35's capabilities, Musk responded that the prized jet is a "shit design."

In another post, Musk said: "Crewed fighter jets are an inefficient way to extend the range of missiles or drop bombs. A reusable drone can do so without all the overhead of a human pilot."

"'Stealth' means nothing", he added, saying that it's "laughably easy" to shoot down fighter jets.

Musk has made similar arguments several times over the years.

Mauro Gilli, a senior researcher in military technology at the Center for Security Studies of the Swiss university ETH Zurich, told BI that Musk was echoing valid criticisms of the F-35 program.

But, he said, there were many problems with Musk's line of thinking.

Gilli acknowledged that the F-35 program has had well-documented cost and time overruns. But those problems are not primarily down to them being crewed aircraft, he told BI.

"The primary source of costs and problems was the electronics and, in particular, the software," he said.

And that would only get more expensive with a drone equivalent, he added.

"A drone operating within enemy airspace will not be remotely controlled," Gilli said. "It will need to have a very high level of autonomy."

This requires even more costly and complex electronics and software than even a piloted aircraft, he suggested.

According to Gilli, Musk's suggestion is to rely on something that has "so far been the primary source of cost and time delays. And so there is no reason to believe that these drones would be any cheaper."

Musk's emphasis on a "reusable" drone also means it would need all the same stealth capabilities as an F-35 in penetrating enemy airspace and evading air defenses, Gilli said, making his comments about stealth a moot point.

A target for DOGE?

It's unclear if Musk intends to use his new position to impact any plans or costs for the F-35, the Pentagon's most expensive fighter program to date.

But he mentioned Defense Department spending in a column in The Wall Street Journal that criticized federal government budgets.

"The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent," Musk wrote in the column with Vivek Ramaswamy, who is to lead Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency with him.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that the intention of their department is to eliminate the "sheer magnitude of waste, fraud, and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end."

As for the F-35, costs for the Lockheed Martin-developed stealth jet have hit about $485 billion, after a 10% bump this year due to what the Pentagon said was a need to improve its engine cooling.

Around 1,000 of the planes have been delivered to the US military and its allies, out of a total of over 3,000 aircraft planned for production over the F-35 program's lifetime.

The jet's operational lifespan is estimated to last until 2088, and the Government Accountability Office thus expects the F-35 program to cost over $2 trillion to produce and sustain.

Musk did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, but he's said before that the US should consider remote-piloted alternatives to manned jets, both to keep up with the rise in drone warfare and also to help Air Force procurement stay competitive.

In response to Musk's tweets, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told BI that the F-35 is "the most advanced, survivable and connected fighter aircraft in the world, a vital deterrent and the cornerstone of joint all-domain operations."

"As we did in his first term, we look forward to a strong working relationship with President Trump, his team, and also with the new Congress to strengthen our national defense," they added.

Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesperson told BI: "We have combat capable aircraft in operation today and they perform exceptionally well against the threat for which they were designed."

The spokesperson added: "Pilots continually emphasize that this is the fighter they want to take to war if called upon."