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A terror attack apparently inspired by the Islamic State and carried out by a U.S.-born Army veteran left 15 dead and dozens more injured in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
The attack also left Americans, and American politicians, stunned, angered and unsure of how to immediately respond, as federal and local law enforcement agencies searched for answers and tried to answer the many, many questions emerging from the gruesome killings.
What was known by late Wednesday evening was that Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, who served for more than a decade in the Army, including an active duty deployment to Afghanistan, and lived in Texas, where for some time he operated a real estate business, intentionally drove a white Ford pickup truck into a crowd that was celebrating on Bourbon Street. After crashing the truck and being cornered by police, Jabbar exited the vehicle and exchanged gunfire with police, who shot him dead. Two New Orleans PD officers were also injured during the gunfight.
Authorities found an apparent improvised explosive device inside the truck and another IED nearby the vehicle, an FBI official said. That led officials to believe that Jabbar did not act alone in the attack, but details of others who might be involved have not been made public. (An early report, generated following an alert sent by the FBI to police departments around the country, of four potential accomplices seen planting IEDs around the French Quarter was later determined to be inaccurate.)
The attack, naturally, set the city on edge. Video from the French Quarter on Wednesday evening showed sparse crowds, and media interviews with people around the city found that the combination of the attack and mystery surrounding the IEDs were keeping most people away from the area.
Additionally, the attack’s odd combination of religious terrorism carried out by a U.S.-born military veteran left politicians and the partisan media unable to apply the typical talking points and blame, and in the odd position of mostly being forced to wait on additional details to emerge from the investigation before resorting to scathing commentary. That didn’t stop some, however.
Included in the group intent on pushing a partisan message was President-elect Donald Trump, who very quickly on Wednesday morning blamed the attack on “illegal immigration,” following an erroneous early report from Fox News that the attacker had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border the day before. Trump’s message also took shots at the media and Democrats.
Joining Trump was Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who used a tweet to vaguely blame President Joe Biden for the attack, saying that “our national security has been dismantled” by the president. Tuberville also retweeted fellow Sen. Mike Lee, who noted a possible second attack in Las Vegas, where a Tesla exploded outside of a Trump property, and asked where Joe Biden is.
At that time, Biden had given a press update on the New Orleans attack and stated during the interview that he had been briefed by the FBI, NSC and CIA and that he had personally spoken with officials in Louisiana. It’s unclear if either Lee or Tuberville had spoken to any law enforcement officials before commenting.
Outside of those few exceptions, however, most other lawmakers kept their comments respectful and cautionary. Sen. Katie Britt called the attack “an act of unbridled evil,” and said she continued to pray for the victims and law enforcement officers handling the investigation. Rep. Terri Sewell said that “there is no place for such horrific violence in our nation,” while also offering prayers to the victims and their families.
Rep. Robert Aderholt perhaps best summed up the complexities of the attack.
“While terrorism has not been in the news as much in recent years, these incidents remind us that there are individuals within our own country who seek to inflict death and destruction on innocent lives,” Aderholt wrote. “As we mourn those lost and pray for the injured, we must recommit ourselves as a nation to identifying and eliminating these terrorist sleeper cells of evil.”
