WASHINGTON: As investigators learn more about the man who pledged allegiance to Islamic State and killed 14 people with a truck on New Year’s Day in New Orleans, a key question remains: How did a veteran and one-time employee of a major corporation become radicalised?
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said on Thursday (Jan 2) that videos made by Shamsud-Din Jabbar just before the attack showed the 42-year-old Texas native supported Islamic State, claimed to have joined the militant group before last summer and believed in a “war between the believers and non-believers”.
While the FBI was looking into his “path to radicalisation,” evidence collected since the attack showed that Jabbar was “100 per cent inspired by ISIS”, said Raia, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Jabbar, who authorities said acted alone, was killed in a shootout with police.
His half-brother, Abdur Jabbar, said in an interview that Jabbar, who had worked for audit firm Deloitte, abandoned Islam in his 20s or 30s, but had recently renewed his faith.
Abdur Jabbar told Reuters in Beaumont, Texas, where Jabbar was born and raised, that he had no idea when his half-brother became radicalised.
Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated terrorism cases and is on an advisory council to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said Jabbar did not fit the typical profile of those radicalised by Islamic State.
Jabbar served for 10 years in the US Army and was in his 40s, Soufan noted, explaining that people who fall prey to Islamic State recruitment are typically much younger.
“This is a guy who … went from being a patriot to being an ISIS terrorist,” said Soufan.
Attackers responsible for a range of deadly strikes have claimed a link to Islamic State and other jihadist groups.
They included the lone survivor of the Islamist squad that killed 130 people across Paris in 2015, the man who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, and the man who drove a truck into a crowded bike path in 2017 in New York City, killing eight people.
Some attacks, like those in 2015 in Paris, were carried out by trained Islamic State operatives. But investigators found no evidence of a direct role for the terrorist group in others.
