01-03-2025 Gary Lane
The FBI has determined that the recent car-ramming attack in New Orleans was an act of terrorism, and the perpetrator was affiliated with ISIS. Meanwhile, additional information has emerged regarding the Tesla truck bombing outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.
In the early hours of the New Orleans investigation, the FBI said the New Year’s attack there was not terrorism. Now, it’s issuing a strong statement on Shamsud-din Jabbar’s motive, announcing he intentionally killed and injured as many people as he could because of his ties to ISIS.
“First and foremost, let me be very clear about this point. This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” said FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia.
Now, after viewing hundreds of surveillance videos and conducting interviews, the FBI determined Jabbar acted alone. Still, the FBI is alerting law enforcement across the nation to be on guard. It’s warning of potential copycats who might try to carry out attacks similar to the New Year’s Day rampage.
It’s still unclear how Jabbar was radicalized. He posted five videos on his Facebook account moments before the attack, claiming his support for ISIS.
“In the first video, Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers’,” explained Raia. “Additionally, he stated that he joined ISIS before this summer. He also provided a will and testament.”
According to the FBI, Jabbar had experienced several divorces and was tens of thousands of dollars in debt. He rented a truck on December 30th and drove the vehicle from Houston to New Orleans on the 31st.
He killed 14 people and wounded dozens in the worst mass terror attack on U.S. soil in years.
The dead included a young mother, a would-be nurse, and a football star.
Friends and family members are mourning the victims. People like the father of two, 37-year-old Reggie Hunter, who was visiting Bourbon Street with his cousin. “You just think that this young guy, a great dad, sense of humor, funny, hard-working, loved his family you know his sisters, his brothers, his cousins, love everybody, and to go out and have fun and you are murdered for no reason by someone you don’t know,” said Shirell Jackson.
Twenty-seven-year-old Nicole Perez was a single mom, working hard and raising her three-year-old son. “She was being a mother and a father and she was doing a really good job,” explained co-worker Kimberly Usher-Fall.
Eighteen-year-old Nakyra Dedeaux was days away from starting nursing school. Her mother says she warned Nakyra to stay away from Bourbon Street. “I said, well make sure you don’t go to New Orleans like you snuck last time,” said Nakyra’s mother Melissa Dedeaux.
Las Vegas Truck Bomber Died of Gunshot to the Head
And in Las Vegas, authorities there have identified the man who blew up a Tesla truck in front of the Trump Hotel as Mathew Livelsberger, an active duty, highly decorated U.S. Army Green Beret.
The truck was loaded with two semi-automatic weapons, camp fuel, and fireworks mortars.
Police say he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound just before the explosion. Reportedly he had moved out of his house due to marital problems.
Although both Livelsberger and Jabbar served at Ft. Bragg and in Afghanistan, the FBI found no connection between the two.
RELATED:
‘Objective Evil’: Police Hunt for Clues in ISIS-Inspired Terror Massacre in New Orleans
01-02-2025 Lorie Johnson
The FBI is searching for clues in the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans. The early morning rampage took the lives of 15 people, including a former college football player and a young, single mother. Federal agents are also looking into whether the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas is connected.
So far the FBI is saying the evidence indicates the driver who murdered revelers in New Orleans acted alone, but he was “100%” inspired by the Islamic State terrorist group The man drove a rented pickup truck through the New Year’s Eve crowd in New Orleans at a high rate of speed.
That truck, which was carrying an ISIS flag, barreled down Canal and Bourbon streets at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday. The suspect was wearing body armor and firing an AR-style rifle out of the truck, leaving three blocks of carnage, killing 15 and injuring dozens more.
Zion Parsons, who witnessed the event, is relieved to have survived it. “We ran one way, so like about five feet away from the curb, and we ran into the bar to be protected by this, by the little divot,” he said.
The suspect crashed the truck, then stepped out and opened fire, wounding two police officers, before being shot and killed. He’s identified as 42-year-old Shamsud Din Jabbar, a U.S.-born citizen and Army veteran who lived in Houston, Texas.
President Biden Wednesday said the suspect was a terrorist intent on causing maximum harm. “The FBI also reported to me that mere hours before the attack he posted videos on social media that he was inspired by ISIS expressing a desire to kill,” he said.
Police found multiple homemade pipe bombs packed with nails inside the truck. They also found other explosive devices in the city. At a news conference Wednesday, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said like many, he questions why any person or people would commit such a horrific crime.
“For those people who don’t believe in objective evil, all you have to do is look at what happened in our city early this morning,” he said.
Officials say the normal steel barricades were not in place because they were being replaced in time for the Super Bowl being played in New Orleans next month. Vehicles were placed as blockades, but there were gaps.
New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick addressed what many are calling a lapse in judgment at a news conference. “We had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around. So we did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it,” she said.
New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno said the new barrier should have been there. “This construction should have happened much earlier and everything really should have been ready and in place, fixed, repaired, ready to go now.”
Meanwhile, about 600 miles to the west, investigators are questioning whether a deadly blast of a separate truck in Las Vegas is linked to the New Orleans attack. The same app was used to rent both the Las Vegas and the New Orleans vehicles.
Man Who Died in Cybertruck Explosion at Trump Hotel Was Active-Duty US Green Beret
01-02-2025 Tara Copp
LAS VEGAS (AP) – The person who died in the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck packed with explosives outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier, officials said Thursday.
Two law enforcement officials identified the man inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck as Matthew Livelsberger. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Livelsberger was a member of the Army’s elite Green Berets, a special forces unit and guerrilla warfare experts, according to an Army statement. He has served in the Army since 2006, rising through the ranks, and was on approved leave when he died, the statement said. The Green Berets work to counter terrorists abroad using unconventional techniques.
Livelsberger spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command.
The FBI said Thursday in a post on X that it was “conducting law enforcement activity” at a home in Colorado Springs related to Wednesday’s explosion but provided no other details.
The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot to death by police. That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack and police believe the driver was not acting alone.
Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran, also spent time at Fort Bragg, now called Fort Liberty, but one official said so far there is no overlap in their assignments there.
The investigation so far has not shown the incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans are related, and authorities don’t think the men knew each other, the two law enforcement officials said.
Seven people nearby suffered minor injuries when the Tesla truck exploded.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday afternoon on X that “we have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.”
Please Pray for President Donald Trump and his family and USA Christains.