The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday warned of a potential public safety threat from violent extremists in response to the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, Louisiana.
“The FBI and DHS are concerned about possible copycat or retaliatory attacks due to the persistent appeal of vehicle ramming as a tactic for aspiring violent extremist attackers. Previous attackers inspired by foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) who have conducted vehicle attacks in the United States and abroad have used rented, stolen, and personally owned vehicles, which are easy to acquire,” the agencies said in a statement.
The New Year’s Day attack killed more than a dozen people after a truck was rammed into a crowd of revelers by 42-year-old US military veteran, Shamsud-Din Jabbar.
skip past newsletter promotion after newsletter promotion
In the days after the attack, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the US National Counterterrorism Center also warned of potential copycat attacks. The warning noted that vehicle-ramming attacks are “attractive for aspiring assailants given vehicles’ ease of acquisition and the low skill threshold necessary to conduct an attack”.
The bulletin also advised law-enforcement personnel and private security firms to be aware that in many previous cases attackers who rammed vehicles into crowds were armed and continued their attacks with guns or “edged weapons”.
Jabbar, who was shot dead by police, reportedly descended into religious extremism in recent years, a process that intensified as he faced increasing financial and familial pressures. He drove a rental truck from Houston to New Orleans and posted videos online along the way professing support for the Islamic State before driving around a police car, on to a sidewalk, and down a street filled with pedestrians hours after the new year began.
Cities often use physical barriers to prevent vehicle ramming attacks, but in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, the road-blocking, cylindrical columns known as bollards were down for repairs at 11 of 16 locations, including at the foot of Bourbon Street where the attack occurred.