Amid reports of a link between the New Orleans attack and the truck explosion outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) rejected the media reports and said the attackers acted alone. "It was premeditated and an evil act," said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division. The FBI has received more than 400 tips from the public, some from New Orleans and others from other states, added Raia.
"We know that he specifically picked out Bourbon Street, not sure why," said. "He was 100 per cent inspired by ISIS," he added.
Fireworks and camp fuel canisters were found in a Tesla Cybertruck that blew up outside the Trump International Hotel early on Wednesday, killing a suspect inside the vehicle.
Cybertruck driver was US Army soldier
The person who died in the explosion was an active-duty US Army soldier who spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, three US officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. The officials also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of his service.
The truck explosion came hours after a driver, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans. Jabbar, a US Army veteran, also spent time at Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command. An official told the AP that there is no apparent overlap in their assignments there.
The investigation so far has not shown the incidents are related, and authorities don’t think the men knew each other, two law enforcement officials said. The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
ISIS flag recovered
Authorities recovered a black flag of the Islamic State in the truck, and President Joe Biden said he was told by the FBI that Jabbar, a US citizen from Texas, had posted videos to social media hours before the carnage that showed he was motivated by the militant group and expressed a desire to kill.
He was shot to death by police, and the FBI said Wednesday that it believed he did not act alone. Investigators found guns and what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the vehicle, along with other explosive devices elsewhere in the French Quarter.
Officials fanned out to serve search warrants and spent hours at a Houston-area home thought to be connected to the investigation. But as of Thursday morning, no additional arrests were known to have been made, and it was unclear if the FBI was still actively looking for more suspects.
The rampage turned festive Bourbon Street into a macabre scene of maimed victims, bloodied bodies and pedestrians fleeing for safety inside nightclubs and restaurants.
In addition to the dead, dozens of people were hurt.
Zion Parsons, 18, of Gulfport, Mississippi, said he saw the truck “barrelling through, throwing people like in a movie scene, throwing people into the air”. “Bodies, bodies all up and down the street, everybody screaming and hollering,” said Parsons, whose friend Nikyra Dedeaux was among the dead.
(With inputs from agency)
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