An alleged member of the Islamic State group was arrested Tuesday by Iraqi authorities on charges of inciting the New Year’s Day truck-ramming incident on Bourbon Street in New Orleans that killed 14 and injured 57 others.
The attack was committed by Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas citizen, U.S. Army veteran and convert to radical Islam. He drove a rented Ford F-150 truck bearing an ISIS flag into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street early on New Year's Day. Jabbar was shot and killed by police after an exchange of gunfire.
Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said that an ISIS member “was arrested for inciting the January 2025 truck attack in the United States” after Iraq received a request from the Trump administration to assist in the investigation, Al Arabiya News, a state-owned Saudi Arabia media outlet reported.
The Judicial Council said the suspect is “a member of the external operations office of the DAESH terrorist organization,” using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The suspect, whose name was not given, will be tried in Iraq under its anti-terrorism law.
Jabbar reportedly posted a series of videos on his Facebook page in the hours before his attack in which he discussed planning to kill his family and having dreams that helped inspire him to join ISIS.
Jabbar referenced in the videos his divorce and how he had planned to gather his family for a “celebration” with the intention of killing them. But Jabbar said in the videos he changed his plans because he wanted news headlines to focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers.” Jabbar stated he had joined ISIS before this summer.
Although Iraq proclaimed the defeat of ISIS on its territory in 2017, terrorist cells have remained active and conduct sporadic attacks against the army and police, according to Al Arabiya News. A recent United Nations report said government-led counterterrorism operations have resulted in the deaths of nearly half of ISIS’ senior leaders in Iraq.
Newsmax reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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