Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s descent into religious extremism unfolded over years – but his deadly disdain for many of his fellow Americans’ way of life recently intensified as he faced increasing financial and familiar pressures, his associates have said in the wake of the truck attack that killed 14 Near Year’s Day revelers on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street.
Jabbar – a 42-year-old former army signal corps sergeant who was shot dead by police at the end of the attack – was described as having once been smart and affable by his former military colleagues, who recounted being shocked by his transformation into someone authorities now consider to be a terrorist.
Trevor Neill, who studied alongside Jabbar in a 2010 information technology training class at the Fort Gordon army base in Georgia, told WWL Louisiana that “there was nothing out of the ordinary” about Jabbar at one point.
“So, for 28 weeks in Fort Gordon, Sham was my friend,” Neill said to the New Orleans CBS affiliate and Guardian reporting partner. “There was nothing out of the ordinary from him. We knew him as a cool, chill guy.”
In a separate video on the TikTok social media platform, Neill added: “Someone you cared about … just takes a left turn.”
Peter Heap, who also participated in the specialized army IT course with Jabbar, said that he was the most talented student in the class and – during their time studying and socializing together – never made any controversial remarks. While Heap more recently noticed Jabbar had started posting pro-Islamic missives on Facebook, none of them promoted the extremism most scholars of religion resoundingly reject.
“I think sometime between when I knew him and now, he got radicalized,” Heap said.
Jabbar’s father had converted from Christianity to Islam. And while the veteran had also converted, he and his brothers did not live particularly religious lives, one relative told the New York Times. This relative, who did not wish to be named, reportedly told the Times: “I don’t think I ever heard the word Allah said.”
After Jabbar’s mother, who did not convert from Christianity to Islam, and his father divorced, she and their other children moved to the Houston area. Jabbar ultimately enrolled at the University of Houston, and his difficulties were the kind experienced by many young adults.
Jabbar relished college culture, partying and drinking so much that his studies suffered – and he lost a scholarship, a half-brother told the Times. He began serving in the US army in 2007 and was eventually promoted to staff sergeant, according to a statement provided by the military branch.
Jabbar was deployed to Afghanistan and secured a global war on terrorism service medal, among other military citations. “It set him straight,” a half-brother of Jabbar recalled. “It gave him some discipline. It grounded him.”
Jabbar studied at Georgia State University after his eight years in the army. While one friend said Jabbar had shown more interest in Islam, associates from that period also said he didn’t reveal extremism.
He would return to Texas and eventually secure work at Deloitte, a top-four accounting firm. But associates and court records indicate his chaotic family life undermined the stability one might expected to achieve with an accounting-industry income.
Legal filings in Georgia and Texas show that Jabbar was thrice divorced: in 2012, 2016 and 2020. These divorces required that Jabbar pay alimony as well as child support for three children, the Times noted.
Court papers in this 2020 divorce revealed still more financial woes. One document indicated that he was ordered in 2021 to pay $1,350 a month to his third spouse.
Jabbar started working in real estate with family partly due to growing debts and, according to WWL, faced foreclosure. He owed $27,000 in back payments on this mortgage, according to the Times.
Jabbar had been hired by the accounting firm Deloitte before the third divorce was finalized in 2022. But more than 25% of his salary went to spousal support, the newspaper reported.
For about one year, Jabbar’s associates said, his behavior took a turn: one ex-wife and her new husband requested that his interactions with their children be limited as he became more erratic. Jabbar’s unpredictability appeared to dovetail with his religious views, this woman’s husband told the Times.
After the Israel-Hamas war started in October 2023, he spiraled still more. “He didn’t like it – he said it was genocide on both sides, inhumane,” a half-brother reportedly said. “It was senseless.”
This half-brother said he started to espouse hard-line views. “He didn’t approve of drinking or partying,” he reportedly remarked. “He said it was not in accordance with what God commanded us to do. He said it wasn’t fruitful. He said it didn’t bring anything positive.”
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Jabbar posted recordings on SoundCloud reviewed by the Guardian that railed against earthly pleasures and claimed “poetry, like rapping” could draw people “into the things that God has made forbidden to us: the intoxicants like marijuana, alcohol, sedatives, opioids, stimulants and others”.
“Then there’s the way that music entices us to illicit sex, vulgarity, violence, betrayal, arrogance, burglary, cheating, ingratitude to our spouses or others in general,” he also said.
About 18 months ago, Jabbar moved into a mobile home located in a “fenced compound” in Houston, WWL said. The neighborhood was described by the outlet as “a tight-knit community of devout Muslims who live near a mosque”.
“When he [moved] in, he was a Muslim,” one resident said. “I didn’t know what happened to him before. I didn’t know anything before what his background was. I know he was in the military. I learned it as everybody else learned it as well.”
Congregants at the two mosques close to this neighborhood said that they hadn’t seen Jabbar at either house of worship, the Times said.
The FBI’s deputy assistant director of counter-terrorism, Christopher Raia, said that Jabbar began voicing support for the Islamic State (IS) terror group this summer. Not long before the attack, Raia said Jabbar posted five videos online.
“In the first video, Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the, quote, ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers’,” Raia said at a news briefing.
Just after 3am local time on 1 January, Jabbar drove a rented pickup truck flying a pole-mounted IS flag around a police blockade and into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street. New Orleans’s most famous thoroughfare – one of the most renowned in the world – is lined with bars, music clubs and strip clubs known to attract both locals looking to unwind as well as tourists keen on revelry.
He also fired a rifle before officers who confronted him fatally shot him after he crashed his truck into a construction lift. He was unable to detonate homemade, remote-controlled bombs that he had previously hid in ice chests and positioned on Bourbon Street.
His attack left 14 people dead, a mix of people from the New Orleans area, other parts of Louisiana, other US states and one British national. More than 35 people were wounded, among them two police officers, a pair of Israeli citizens and two Mexican nationals.
WWL Louisiana on Friday sought to capture the grief into which Jabbar thrust one of the world’s most festive cities. The horrors he inflicted came as the city looked forward to the enormous street celebrations at the heart of Carnival, beginning this year on 6 January and culminating with Mardi Gras on 4 March.
Those in and around the city were also hoping for a boost to the regional economy by hosting the college football playoff quarter-finals on New Year’s Day – which was postponed until 2 January – and the NFL’s Super Bowl on 9 February. And they wondered whether a region which in recent decades has endured destructive hurricanes while also disproportionately being affected by the height of the Covid-19 pandemic would ever catch a break.
“I was feeling so good about my city,” one woman said to WWL. “I was so proud of them that big events were coming here. And here, this lowlife and evil somebody come here and just snatched away all our hopes and dreams. This little city needs some kind of happiness. This is – this is a horrible, horrible thing and I hope you know that each and every one of us are so, so heartbroken.”