WASHINGTON: As investigators learn more about the man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State and killed 14 people with a truck on New Year Day in New Orleans, a key question remains: How did a veteran and one-time employee of a major corporation become radicalised?
FBI deputy assistant director Christopher Raia said Thursday that videos made by Shamsud-Din Jabbar just before the attack showed the 42-year-old Texas native supported IS, claimed to have joined the militant group before last summer and believed in a “war between the believers and nonbelievers”. While FBI was looking into his “path to radicalisation“, evidence collected since the attack showed that Jabbar was “100% inspired by ISIS”, said Raia, using an acronym for Islamic State. Jabbar, who authorities said acted alone, was killed in a shootout with police.
His half-brother, Abdur Jabbar, said that Jabbar, who had worked for audit firm Deloitte, abandoned Islam in his 20s or 30s, but had recently renewed his faith. He told Reuters in Beaumont, Texas, where Jabbar was born and raised, that he had no idea when his half-brother became radicalised.
Ali Soufan, an ex-FBI agent who is on an advisory council to homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said Jabbar did not fit the typical profile of those radicalised by IS. Jabbar served for 10 years in the US army and was in his 40s, Soufan noted, explaining that people who fall prey are typically much younger. “This is a guy who … went from being a patriot to being an IS terrorist.”
It is still unclear what contact Jabbar might have had with overseas extremist groups. A US govt official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Jabbar travelled to Egypt in 2023, staying in Cairo for a week, before returning to the US and then travelling to Toronto for 3 days. It wasn’t clear what he did during those travels.
US officials and other experts say IS conducts most of its recruiting in online chatrooms and over encrypted communications apps. Recruits could either receive direct orders or self-radicalise to take action. US officials say IS has used the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza war to boost its recruitment. By inspiring individuals to carry out attacks independently, the IS aims to create an atmosphere of fear and instability, demonstrating its global influence despite lacking a physical caliphate.
Attackers responsible for a range of deadly strikes have claimed a link to IS. They included the lone survivor of the Islamist squad that killed 130 people across Paris in 2015, the man who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, and the man who drove a truck into a crowded bike path in 2017 in New York City, killing eight. Some attacks, like those in 2015 in Paris, were carried out by trained IS operatives. But investigators found no proof of a direct role for the terrorist group in others. Reuters & AP
