Investigators were on Thursday intent on finding out who else may be behind the truck attack in New Orleans early on New Year’s Day that killed 15 and injured dozens when the chief suspect, 42-year-old US citizen, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, drove a pickup truck into a crowd on busy Bourbon Street.
Jabbar was killed in the attack as he shot at police and was shot to death as law enforcement returned fire.
“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” Alethea Duncan, assistant special agent with the FBI, said. “We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates.”
The attack took place early Wednesday morning in the French Quarter of New Orleans, which was crowded with people celebrating the new year.
Jabbar, from Houston, Texas, drove a rented white pickup truck between the 100 and 400 blocks of Bourbon Street, crashing into revelers and mowing many down, then shooting from the truck, including hitting two police officers before he was killed.
Jabbar, who served in the US army for 13 years, was wearing body armor and a helmet, according to a law enforcement bulletin, and was displaying an Islamic State flag mounted on a pipe in the bed of the vehicle. The FBI has said that it is investigating the attack as an “act of terrorism”.
Investigators found guns and what appeared to be improvised explosive devices in the vehicle, as well as elsewhere in the city’s French Quarter.
On Wednesday, the Louisiana attorney general, Liz Murrill, told NBC News that she can say “with some certainty” that “there are multiple individuals who are involved”.
Murrill said that the explosive devices associated with the attack appear to have been manufactured at a rented Airbnb in New Orleans that she said was rented out “for that purpose”.
In addition, a house fire occurred on Wednesday morning “that was connected to this event where we believe the IEDs were being made” Murrill added.
On Thursday morning, the New Orleans police superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, stated on NBC’s Today show that authorities were investigating “people of interest” related to Wednesday’s attack.
“We have people of interest, they are not people who are suspects at this time” Kirkpatrick said, adding “The FBI is tracking down everybody.”
Authorities are also investigating a potential connection between the attack in New Orleans and explosion that occurred later on Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a hotel owned by Donald Trump in Las Vegas, which resulted in one fatality.
The vehicles involved in the two attacks were both rented using the popular car-sharing app Turo.
A spokesperson for Turo stated that they were cooperating with law enforcement. The company also said that “do not believe that either renter … had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat”.
On Thursday morning, as the city of New Orleans continues to reel from the attack, investigators continue to actively search for answers and potential accomplices.
Later on Thursday afternoon, the Sugar Bowl, a college football playoff quarter-final, is scheduled to take place in New Orleans. The event, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, had been postponed by one day due to the New Year’s Day attack.
Kirkpatrick said the event would have Super Bowl-level security, with collaboration from local, federal and military partners for safety.
“We are going to have absolutely hundreds of officers and staff lining our streets, lining Bourbon Street, lining the French Quarter,” Kirkpatrick said. “We are staffing up at the same level if not more so than we were prepared for Super Bowl.