The New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans is one of a series of such mass murders in which Muslim terrorists have plowed trucks into unsuspecting revelers.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who flew an ISIS flag on the Ford 150 pickup used in the attack, carried out what is at least the third such attack. And the murders in New Orleans closely followed a Saudi “refugee’s” truck terror attack on the Christmas Market in Magdeburg, Germany, on December 20.
Unclear is whether the attack in New Orleans is linked to the Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. Active-duty Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger died in that blast.
A “Fierce Negotiator”
Hours after Jabbar drove into pedestrians on Bourbon Street, crashed into a crane, then died in a gun battle with city cops, video surfaced in which he claimed to be a property manager and real estate agent.
Nothing in the video suggested that he might be a deranged, pro-ISIS terrorist who might do what he did yesterday.
Jabbar said he was raised in Beaumont, Texas, but lived in Houston, and spent his entire life in the Lone Star State except for his military travel.
He said he was a human resources and information tech specialist, which taught him the “meaning of great service and what it means to be responsive and take everything seriously, dotting I’s and crossing Ts.”
His abilities as a “fierce negotiator” who “brilliantly” markets properties are what set him apart from other real estate agents, he said. And he would use “every ounce of energy” to “get the best deal that you can possibly get” for your property. “Everything’s gonna go off without a hitch.”
On the other hand, in a passport photo released by the FBI, Jabbar resembles a terrorist from central casting, a man with dead, dead eyes. Exactly the type who would plow into and kill 15 pedestrians.
Records from the Federal Election Commission show that Jabbar donated $20 to the far-left Act Blue campaign: $15 in 2020, and $5 in 2014.
Authorities are trying to determine whether Jabbar and Livelsberger are linked.
The Green Beret
With 20 years in the Army, Livelsberger “had been a soldier during the peak of U.S. combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and had numerous combat deployments,” an official told USA Today.
“Livelsberger enlisted as a Special Forces candidate in January 2006 and served in the active duty force until March 2011, according to the Army,” the newspaper continued:
He then joined the National Guard and Army Reserve from 2011 until December 2012. At that point, he rejoined the active-duty Army as a Special Operations soldier.
CBS reported that his wife hadn’t heard from him in days.
Jabbar and Livelsberger rented their trucks from the same car-sharing company, Turo. They both served at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, now called Fort Liberty. However, The Associated Press reported, their time at the base did not overlap.
Tesla chieftain Elon Musk confirmed on X that Livelsberger’s rented Cybertruck did not explode because the truck malfunctioned. Rather, police found fireworks, mortars, gas canisters, and “other explosives” in the truck, strongly suggesting a terror attack.
Livelsberger rented the truck in Colorado and drove it to Las Vegas.
“The fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred inside of the valet because it had most of the blast,” Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said:
You’ll see that the front glass doors at the Trump hotel were not even broken by that blast which they were parked directly in front of.
McMahill said Musk sent video from charging stations to authorities.
A Common Islamist Terror Weapon
Jabbar isn’t the first — and won’t be the last — terrorist to stage an apparent Islamist attack in a truck.
Five days before Christmas, German police arrested Saudi national Taleb al-Abdulmohsen after he plowed into the Christmas Market in Magdeburg, Germany. He landed in Germany in 2006, and received “refugee” status in 2016, CBS News reported.
Abdulmohsen murdered five and injured 200, authorities allege. They believe he might be mentally ill. As well, CBS reported, he
has in the past voiced strongly anti-Islam views and sympathies with the far right in his social media posts, as well as anger at Germany for allowing in too many Muslim war refugees and other asylum-seekers.
If true — if too many Muslims in Germany are a problem — driving into a Christmas Market is senseless.
Nor is Jabbar the first ISIS attacker.
In 2016, Tunisian “asylum seeker” Anis Amri drove a semitrailer truck into the Christmas Market in Berlin. He murdered 12 and injured 56. Police killed him in a shootout in Milan, Italy. ISIS claimed responsibility for the mass murder.
Also in 2016, Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel plowed a 19-ton cargo truck into Bastille Day revelers in Nice. He murdered 86 and injured 434. ISIS also claimed responsibility for that mass murder.
