New Orleans truck attack: What we know as details emerge about the suspect, the victims and the ‘ISIS-inspired’ plot

The FBI has released new surveillance of the U.S. Army veteran who rammed a truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, leaving at least 14 people dead and dozens injured.

The suspect — identified by the FBI as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen from Texas and an Army vet — proclaimed his support for ISIS in the hours before the attack, according to the FBI.

One image shows Jabbar walking near Bourbon Street, a famed party street in the city’s French Quarter, just over an hour before Wednesday's attack.

Jabbar was ultimately killed in a shoot-out with police early on Wednesday. Investigators initially said they believed Jabbar worked with others to pull off the attack and were searching for other suspects. But on Thursday, the FBI said it now believed that Jabbar acted alone.

“This was an act of terrorism,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia told reporters, adding Jabbar was “100% inspired by ISIS."

Authorities also said they’re investigating a possible connection to the Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday, but emphasized that right now, there is no definitive link between the two attacks.

Here’s everything we know so far about the deadly New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans.

FBI now believes attacker acted alone, declared his support for ISIS on Facebook

The FBI and other law enforcement officials said during a Thursday news conference that they are reviewing "hundreds of hours of surveillance” of the French Quarter and other locations, and have received over 400 tips from the public.

Raia provided a timeline of Jabbar’s actions leading up to the attack:

• On Monday, Dec. 30, Jabbar picked up a rental F-150 pickup truck in Houston.

• On Tuesday, Dec. 31, Jabbar drove from Houston to New Orleans.

• Early on Wednesday, Jan. 1, Jabbar posted five videos to Facebook between 1:29 a.m. and 3:02 a.m. declaring his support for ISIS. In the first video, Raia said Jabbar spoke of how he originally intended to harm his family and friends, but was concerned that news headlines wouldn’t focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers.” Jabbar also stated he joined ISIS before the summer and provided a will and testament.

The FBI added that three phones linked to Jabbar were recovered. “Digital media exploitation is a priority to see what is on the devices and determine if there are any other potential leads,” Raia said. Two laptops were also recovered at a residence on Mandeville Street, and are being reviewed by the FBI.

Investigators said they recovered an ISIS flag from the pickup truck, and FBI bomb technicians also found two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in coolers: one that was found at the intersection of Bourbon and Orleans streets and one at another intersection about two blocks away.

On Thursday, the FBI also released an image of one of the two coolers.

President Biden said Thursday afternoon that he was briefed by the FBI saying: “They’ve established that the attacker is the same person who planted the explosives in those ice coolers in two nearby locations in the French Quarter just a few hours before he rammed into the crowd with his vehicle. They assessed he had a remote detonator in his vehicle to set off those two ice chests.”

Authorities said the attacker drove around a police blockade on Bourbon Street early on New Year's Day and slammed a pickup truck into a crowd of people on a sidewalk, before getting out of the vehicle and opening fire at responding officers. The driver was fatally shot. Two officers were also shot but are in stable condition.

The FBI previously said it had been investigating a residential area in Houston, with the help of local authorities in connection with the attack.

Jabbar's brother says attack 'caught everybody completely by surprise'

Jabbar's younger brother, 24-year-old Abdur-Rahim Jabbar, told CBS News the two weren't close growing up due to their 18-year age gap. They did, however, bond in 2023 when they cared for their father after he suffered a stroke.

Abdur-Rahim Jabbar said it was noticeable that his brother became more outwardly religious, but didn't witness anything that would indicate his brother became radicalized.

"This all just caught everybody completely by surprise," he told CBS News.

Abdur-Rahim Jabbar said his older brother had gone through three divorces: one in 2012 in which his ex-wife obtained custody of their two children; a second divorce in 2016 and a third divorce in 2022. Jabbar had one child in the third marriage. The most recent divorce was quite costly, CBS reported, citing divorce filings. Jabbar said his monthly expenses exceeded his monthly income.

New Orleans was replacing security barriers around Bourbon Street before attack

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Wednesday that older security barriers protecting the Bourbon Street area were malfunctioning and had been removed before the New Year’s Day attack. “Bollards were not up because they are near completion, with the expectation of being completed before the Super Bowl,” she said.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said, however, that police knew the bollards were removed and put heightened security measures in place. “We did have a car there,” she said of the area where the attacker managed to drive through. “We had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around.”

The driver in the attack “defeated” safety measures put in place around Bourbon Street and was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said.

Reuters reported that a 2017 report commissioned by the city of New Orleans found the French Quarter "is often densely packed with pedestrians and represents an area where a mass casualty incident could occur."

Victims include a single mother, father of 2, college student and recent high school grad

New Orleans police and the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office have not yet released the names of the victims who were killed, but family members and universities have started to confirm some of the victims’ identities to multiple news outlets and on social media.

• Kareem Badawi, a student at the University of Alabama

• Martin “Tiger” Bech, 27, a former football player at Princeton University

• Drew Dauphin, a 2023 graduate of Auburn University

• Ni’Kyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, 18, a recent high school graduate

• Billy DiMaio, 25, an account executive at Audacy from New Jersey

• Hubert Gauthreaux, 21, a 2021 graduate of Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero, La.

• Reggie Hunter, 37, father of two from Baton Rouge, La.

• Nicole Perez, late 20s, and a single mother to a four-year-old son

• Matthew Tenedorio, 25, an audiovisual technician at the Superdome in New Orleans

Heightened security measures for the Sugar Bowl

A moment of silence was held in honor of the victims before the National Anthem at the Sugar Bowl on Thursday. The College Football Playoff game was scheduled to take place at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Wednesday but was postponed to Thursday afternoon because of the New Year's Day attack.

Kirkpatrick, the city's police superintendent, said on NBC's Today show on Thursday that New Orleans would see stronger security measures ahead of Thursday's game.

"We are going to have absolutely hundreds of officers and staff lining our streets," she said. "We are staffing up at the same level if not more so than we were prepared for Super Bowl."

Bourbon Street reopened to the public on Thursday afternoon. “We are ready,” Mayor Cantrell said of the event and security, adding that the city is not only ready to host the Sugar Bowl but also future large-scale events.

The stadium is scheduled to host the Super Bowl next month.

Correction: The two laptops were recovered on Mandeville Street. A previous version of this story misstated the location.