- Officials say suspect Jabbar pledged allegiance to group
- US has kept troops in Syria to halt Islamic State resurgence
US officials are warning that Islamic State will try to use the deadly New Year’s attack in New Orleans to spur more acts of violence, even as they say there’s no sign the group directed the incident, according to an assessment obtained by Bloomberg News.
Authorities say the suspect in the attack, US Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, posted videos online pledging support for the group before driving a Ford pickup truck into a crowded French Quarter street during New Year’s celebrations, killing 15 people. Officials said he had an Islamic State flag in the rented vehicle.
The assault was the second deadliest on US soil linked to a foreign terrorist group since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda and has been celebrated by Islamic State supporters online, the assessment from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force shows.
“The assailant’s use of multiple tactics and his US military background will also likely be heavily exploited by ISIS in propaganda aimed at mobilizing other homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) to similar acts of violence,” the assessment said, using an acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
“The Bourbon Street attack underscores that violent extremists continue to view densely populated walkways, parades, mass gatherings and other outdoor events along streets, especially during holidays, as vulnerable targets of opportunity,” it said.
The presence of the flag and Jabbar’s pledged support help explain why authorities were quick to label the deadly attack an act of terrorism. While officials have said for years that Islamic State has been largely defeated, researchers say it has inspired more attacks in recent years and concerns are growing about its re-emergence in its former stronghold of Syria.
Investigators are still probing Jabbar’s links to the group and how he may have been radicalized and driven to carry out the attack. Jabbar also had personal and financial struggles, according to numerous reports, so it’s possible he was looking for a cause to embrace, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors at the Brookings Institution.
US authorities haven’t found any evidence so far showing that Islamic State directed the attack, according to an official, who asked not to be identified speaking about details of the investigation.
“If that originated out of Islamic State recruitment operations, that would be a far more concerning picture than if this is an act of an individual who might just as well not even pick up any ideology and pick up a gun and go and shoot up a nightclub,’ Felbab-Brown said. “The international terrorist threat is not as large as it was 20 years ago, but it’s still substantial.”
Since 2019, when then-President Donald Trump declared the group’s so-called caliphate had been defeated, Islamic State has “metastasized” elsewhere, from Afghanistan to Africa’s Sahel region, said Clara Broekaert, a research fellow at the Soufan Center who focuses on terrorism. Mozambique is grappling with an Islamic State-linked insurgency, while the group has reportedly been behind attacks in Somalia.
Islamic State Khorasan, an offshoot that operates in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has concentrated its efforts on attacks beyond its territory, she said. The group has enhanced its propaganda operations in the wake of social media crackdowns, publishing on its own platforms and employing sophisticated translation services to broaden its reach.
The year 2024 “saw about five foiled Islamic State plots, which is a significant increase since 2023,” Broekaert said. The majority of plots — both successful and foiled — were inspired by Islamic State rather than directed by the group, she said.
Concerns about Islamic State have grown in Syria, where Islamist rebels toppled the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. In December, the US launched about 75 airstrikes against Islamic State targets in the chaotic aftermath in an attempt to keep it from regrouping.
The group’s power has been drastically diminished since its peak around 2014 and 2015, when it ruled over a vast territory spanning portions of Iraq and Syria, according to Daniel Byman, director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“As it becomes less successful, it becomes less inspiring,” Byman said. “That said, it’s not gone completely.”
Most recently, authorities have blamed Islamic State Khorasan for the March attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow, while the suspect in a foiled plot to target a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in August was reportedly inspired by Islamic State.
The US has long maintained a military presence in northeastern Syria in a bid to prevent the group from reconstituting. That figure includes approximately 2,000 troops, according to the Pentagon, predating the fall of Assad’s regime.
“This is a moment of vulnerability in which ISIS will seek to regroup, taking advantage of the transition in Syria,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters last month.
US authorities have long struggled to prevent “lone wolf” attacks by Americans radicalized or inspired by Islamic State or other Islamist terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda.
The Joint Terrorism Task Force assessment didn’t say what the deadliest terrorist-linked attack on US soil had been since September 11.
In 2016, Omar Mateen killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The New York-born attacker had talked about pledging allegiance to a terrorist group.
Husband and wife Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people at an office holiday party in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015 in an attack authorities said was inspired by Islamic State but not directed by it.
Nidal Hasan, a US Army major and psychiatrist, killed 13 and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009 after being inspired in part by Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen and member of Al-Qaeda killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
Individuals who fit the “lone wolf” description are generally less skilled because they lack the formal training provided by terrorist groups, but they are harder to stop because they are not on authorities’ radar, said Byman at CSIS.
“Terrorism in general is very opportunistic,” said the Soufan Center’s Broekaert. She said holiday celebrations have been targeted for their combination of large crowds and symbolism.
Written by: Courtney McBride and Myles Miller @Bloomberg
The post “FBI Warns of Risk Islamic State Will Exploit New Orleans Attack” first appeared on Bloomberg