A man who rammed his pick-up truck into a New Year's Day crowd in New Orleans, USA, killing at least 10 persons and injuring 35 others was a former US serviceman, US officials said on Wednesday.
The alleged perpetrator of the vehicle-ramming attack was Shamsud-Din Jabbar (42), a "US national from Texas" and former Army serviceman, the federal police revealed. He was "determined’ to go on a ‘rampage," according to local police.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said the suspect was carrying an Islamic State (ISIS) flag in his vehicle.
'Probable act of terrorism'
The FBI is treating the attack, which took place in the early hours of Wednesday morning, as a probable "act of terrorism."
At around 3:15 am (09:15 GMT), the man drove a Ford pick-up into the crowd strolling through the ‘Vieux Carré,’ the French Quarter of New Orleans, trying to "run over as many people as he could," a local police chief, Anne Kirkpatrick, announced on Wednesday morning.
After knocking down, and killing or injuring, dozens of people, the man was killed in a shoot-out with police. Two police officers were injured.
"He was fiercely determined to cause carnage," Kirkpatrick said, while initially ruling out the possibility of terrorism.
The FBI then quickly stated on its X account that it was treating the attack, which left 10 people dead and 35 injured, as an "act of terrorism."
ISIS flag found in vehicle
An FBI official on the scene, Alethia Duncan, told the press that she did not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible but that he had acted with potential accomplices.
The FBI said an ISIS flag was found in the suspect's vehicle while two improvised explosive devices found in the vicinity had been defused.
An AFP journalist described the vehicle the suspect had transformed into a weapon as a Ford F-150 pick-up, very common in the United States.
Investigators are working to determine the "possible associations and affiliations" the alleged perpetrator may have had with terrorist organisations.
The attack comes less than three weeks before the transfer of power - on 20 January - between Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican successor-elect Donald Trump.
Trump denounces immigration
President Biden condemned the attack, both verbally and in a statement from the White House. "Nothing justifies violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on the people of our country," he said in the statement.
Trump, who campaigned on denouncing "illegal immigration," linked the incident to the presence of millions of undocumented migrants in the United States. He repeated, without proof, on his Truth Social network that "the criminals who arrive (in the United States) are much worse than the criminals we have in our country."
Shamsud-Din Jabbar was born in the United States and reportedly served in the US military for about 10 years.
Wednesday's attack took place at Canal and Bourbon streets in the French Quarter of New Orleans, a district that never sleeps throughout the year, especially on New Year's Eve. Renowned for its restaurants, bars and jazz clubs, this area, which looks like a small French colonial town, is also home to cabarets and LGBT+ hangouts.
War zone
One witness quoted by CNN, Zion Parsons, spoke on Wednesday of a "war zone," while another, Jimmy Cothran said on ABC News that he saw "madness" from his balcony.
Yet another witness, Jim Mowrer, told CBS News earlier that the vehicle had ploughed into the crowd at "high speed," before its driver got out and opened fire, provoking a police response. "When the shooting stopped, we (...) went back out into the street and saw a lot of people who had been hit; we wanted to see what we could do to help them," but some had “unfortunately died,” he said.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry denounced the ramming as "an atrocious act of violence."
New Orleans, the largest city in Louisiana, is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States and is well known in Europe.
It was due to host a major American university football match, the Sugar Bowl, on Wednesday evening. Following the attack, the game was postponed for 24 hours.
