New Orleans attacker discussed plans to kill his family and join ISIS in chilling recordings. Here’s what we know

CNN

By Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, John Miller, Mark Morales, Paul P. Murphy and Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — In a series of videos, the man responsible for the deadly New Year’s attack in New Orleans discussed planning to kill his family and having dreams that helped inspire him to join ISIS, according to multiple officials briefed on the investigation.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more, posted five videos on Facebook in the hours and minutes leading up to the attack, Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said at a news conference Thursday.

Jabbar, a Texas-born US citizen and Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, made reference in the videos to his divorce and how he had at first planned to gather his family for a “celebration” with the intention of killing them, two officials who had been briefed on the recordings said.

But Jabbar said in the videos he changed his plans because he wanted news headlines to focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers,” Raia said. Jabbar stated he had joined ISIS before this summer, Raia added.

The videos, which CNN has not reviewed, were posted on Jabbar’s Facebook page Wednesday between 1:29 a.m. and 3:02 a.m., Raia said. Jabbar also planted two improvised explosive devices in the hours before the attack, which took place about 3:15 a.m.

Jabbar was killed while exchanging fire with police after ramming the truck through the crowd in the early hours of New Year’s Day. He had an ISIS flag in the truck he drove, according to local and federal authorities.

From military vet to terrorism suspect

Now, law enforcement authorities are reviewing the videos, as well as phones and laptops potentially linked to Jabbar, as they rush to piece in details about how he went from a military veteran to a suspect in a deadly rampage.

His family is also trying to understand where he went wrong. Jabbar was born and grew up in Beaumont, Texas, and his brother Abdur Jabbar, 24, and his father, Rahim Jabbar, 65, told CNN they couldn’t reconcile the attack with the kind, soft-spoken person they knew.

“He was very well-tempered, slow to anger,” Abdur said in an interview in their home in Beaumont. “That’s why it was so unbelievable that he would be capable of something like this.”

Abdur, who spoke with his older brother almost daily over the last year and half, said he thought there must have been a mistake when a relative first told him Jabbar had been identified as the suspect. But then he saw his brother’s face plastered on the news.

The brothers were raised Muslim and regularly attended a mosque on Friday nights while growing up, but Jabbar never spoke about ISIS or showed any signs of radicalization, Abdur said.

“He’s never shared anything like that or of that nature with me,” Abdur said. “He understood what it meant to be a Muslim… It wasn’t this tragedy. It was the complete opposite.”

“That’s what’s puzzling us,” Rahim added. “He wasn’t going through something that we knew of.”

Jabbar served in the Army for more than a decade, an Army spokesperson told CNN. He served as a human resource specialist and information technology specialist on active duty between March 2007 and January 2015, and deployed to Afghanistan once from February 2009 to January 2010, the spokesperson said. After leaving active duty in January 2015, Jabbar served in the Army Reserve until July 2020, when he left service as a staff sergeant.

Serving in the military, Jabber said in a 2020 YouTube video pitching himself as a real estate agent, had taught him “the meaning of great service and what it means to be responsive and take everything seriously, dotting i’s and crossing t’s to make sure that things go off without a hitch.” The video has since been taken offline. In the video, he sat next to a framed poster with the word “Discipline” in bold, and near a book titled “Leadership.”

Jabbar received an associate degree from Central Texas College in 2010 and a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University in 2017, according to an online resume. Both degrees were related to computer science and information technology. He later worked in business development and data engineering at the consulting firms Deloitte and Accenture, according to the resume.

Georgia State University confirmed to CNN Jabbar attended from 2015 to 2017 and graduated with a bachelor’s of Business Administration in Computer Information Systems. Central Texas College and Accenture did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

In a statement, Deloitte said Jabbar served in “a staff-level role since being hired in 2021.” The company is assisting in the investigation and “we are shocked to learn of reports today that the individual identified as a suspect had any association with our firm,” the statement said.

Jabbar obtained in 2019 a real estate license that expired in 2023, according to records from the Texas Real Estate Commission. The records show he took a range of real estate classes on topics such as contract law and finance between 2018 and 2021. He is also listed in public records as having previously registered or being associated with several companies in Texas and Georgia.

Contentious divorces and run-ins with the law

Jabbar had divorced twice, court documents show. His first wife sued him in 2012 over child support soon after he filed for divorce, and the court ordered him to pay amounts that increased over the years as his income grew. The case was dismissed in 2022.

In 2020, a Texas judge granted Jabbar’s second wife a restraining order against him during their divorce case. The order mandated Jabbar to refrain from threats, physical harm, or other stipulated behavior against his ex-wife and either of their children. It required her to avoid the same behavior. In a court filing, Jabbar’s ex-wife stated the marriage had become “insupportable because of discord or a conflict of personalities.”

Jabbar had previously had several run-ins with the law. Harris County court records also show that he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft of between $50 and $500 in December 2002, and served nine months of “community supervision.”

In 2015, he pleaded guilty to charges related to driving under the influence while serving at Fort Bragg, a North Carolina military base, now known as Fort Liberty, according to court records. The documents revealed Jabbar was under the influence of an impairing substance in November 2014 and recorded a blood alcohol level over the legal limit. They also showed that he was driving with “an open container of alcoholic beverage after he consumed alcohol.”

Jabbar was charged with Level 5 DWI –– the least severe level of the offense in North Carolina. According to the documents, he had his driver’s license suspended, was placed on probation for 12 months, fined $200 and complied with 24 hours of community service.

In recent years, Jabbar appears to have struggled with his finances. In a January 2022 email filed as part of his divorce case, he wrote that he could not afford a mortgage payment on his house, which he said was more than $27,000 past due and “in danger of foreclosure” if his divorce settlement was further delayed.

Jabbar also stated in the email that a business he had formed, Blue Meadow Properties, had lost about $28,000 the prior year, and that other businesses he formed weren’t worth any money. He added that he had incurred about $16,000 in credit card debt.

A rented truck

Jabbar rented the truck he used in the New Year’s attack, a Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck, on the car rental website Turo, which lets owners rent their vehicles to other people. The truck’s owner confirmed to CNN in a text message that it was rented on Turo.

Jabbar picked up the truck on December 30 before driving from Houston to New Orleans the following day, Raia said. Mumtaz Bashir, a neighbor of Jabbar’s in Houston, told CNN he saw Jabbar load up the truck on the morning of December 31, and that Jabbar told him he was moving to New Orleans for a new job.

“I asked him if he needs hands for moving, help him out, as a neighbor, do you need any help moving things around? He said, ‘I’m OK,’” Bashir said. Jabbar appeared to be loading light, handheld items into the truck, he said.

Bashir, who said he was shocked and “very saddened” by the attack, described Jabbar as a nice but quiet person who minded his own business. Bashir said he never saw any kind of “red flag” that Jabbar had been radicalized.

The rental site was also linked to an incident in Las Vegas involving a Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside a Trump Hotel Wednesday. The driver of the Cybertruck died in the explosion, police said. Authorities have not confirmed the name of the dead driver and are investigating whether the incident was a terrorist attack.

“We are actively partnering with law enforcement authorities as they investigate both incidents,” a Turo spokesperson told CNN. “We do not believe that either renter involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.”

“We are heartbroken by the violence perpetrated in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and our prayers are with the victims and families,” the statement said.

Turo disabled the truck linked to the New Orleans attack for renting on Wednesday morning. Before it was disabled, the vehicle was listed as costing $105 a day, excluding taxes and fees, and it was unavailable to rent until 12:30 p.m. central time on Wednesday.

CNN’s Ed Lavandera, Ashley Killough, Evan Perez and Pamela Brown contributed to this report.

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