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Iraqi authorities have announced the arrest of a suspected ISIS operative allegedly tied to the New Year’s Day ISIS attack in New Orleans.
Some shit you should know before you read: On January 1, 2025, a terrorist attack struck Bourbon Street in New Orleans when 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US Army veteran from Texas, took a rented Ford F-150 and drove it into a crowd of New Year’s Day partiers, killing 14 civilians and injuring 57 others. Ultimately, Jabbar got in a shootout with police and was killed at the scene. Jabbar was reportedly radicalized online in a matter of weeks, according to FBI officials and former FBI Director Christopher Wray in an interview with 60 Minutes. Investigators discovered that Jabbar had made two prior visits to New Orleans in late 2024, using Meta smart glasses to record footage of potential target areas.
What’s going on now: In an announcement, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council confirmed the arrest of a suspected ISIS operative accused of inciting the terrorist attack in New Orleans. The suspect, whose name has not been released, is described by Iraqi authorities as a member of ISIS’s “external operations office” and was apprehended following a formal request from the United States for investigative cooperation.
The judiciary noted that the suspect will be prosecuted under Iraq’s anti-terrorism law. US officials, while acknowledging the arrest, continue to claim that the New Orleans attacker acted alone.
The FBI’s New Orleans office said in a public statement, “While we continue to work with our law enforcement partners, both in the US and internationally, based on the information to date, we continue to believe that Shamsud-Din Jabbar acted alone in carrying out the attack on Bourbon Street.”
During a press conference, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry acknowledged the arrest, noting that federal authorities had briefed him.
