This undated and unlocated handout image released by the FBI on January 1, 2025 shows a photo of deceased New Orleans attack suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar.
– | Afp | Getty Images
The driver who killed 14 people in an ISIS-inspired vehicular attack in New Orleans used a very rare explosive compound in two homemade bombs that did not detonate, two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told NBC News.
The explosive has never been used in a U.S. terrorist attack or incident, nor in a European one, the officials said. A key question for investigators now is how Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the attacker, learned about the explosive and how he managed to produce it.
Neither of the homemade devices exploded and it remains unclear whether the failure was due to a malfunction, lack of activation or another issue. Jabbar planned to use a transmitter to detonate the two bombs, which were placed in coolers, authorities have said
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a joint statement Friday that the two explosive devicess were placed on Bourbon Street, which Jabbar later turned into a scene of devastation.
The transmitter and two guns were recovered from Jabbar’s truck, the statement said, and are being transported to an FBI laboratory for testing.
The carnage unfolded when Jabbar, 42, drove onto a sidewalk with a pickup truck, bypassing a police vehicle that had been parked to block cars from pedestrians celebrating on the crowded street.
Police killed Jabbar, a Texas-born U.S. citizen and an Army veteran, moments after the attack.
Jabbar had also set fire to a short-term rental house on Mandeville Street in New Orleans, where bomb-making materials were found, Friday’s joint statement added, “in his effort to destroy it and other evidence of his crime.”
The New Orleans Fire Department responded to the fire at around 5:18 a.m., after Jabbar had carried out the attack on Bourbon Street, but the fire had “extinguished itself” before spreading to other rooms, allowing for the “recovery of evidence, including pre-cursors for bomb making material and a privately made device suspected of being a silencer for a rifle,” the statement said.
The agencies said in the statement that it was determined that Jabbar was the only person who could have set the fire.
The FBI has stated that the investigation remains ongoing and it has not changed its posture that Jabbar acted alone.
A mourning period for the victims of the attack will begin Monday, when President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to New Orleans.