Report: New Orleans rammer apparently radicalized in past year, unbeknown to family
Shamsud Din-Jabbar’s relatives say US Army veteran had grown noticeably more conservative, but not violent; they attributed erratic behavior to divorces, financial stress
The terrorist in the New Year’s Eve ramming in New Orleans last week appears to have secretly radicalized over the past year, although investigators are struggling to pinpoint exactly when his views changed from merely adherence to a conservative interpretation of Islam to a view that would justify violence against non-Muslims, according to a Saturday report by The New York Times.
In the early hours of last Wednesday morning, Shamsud Din-Jabbar rammed a rented truck into New Year’s Eve revelers in New Orleans, murdering 15 people and injuring dozens of others, including two Israelis, before he was killed in a firefight with police.
The attack has prompted concerns that the Islamic State group — also known as ISIS — could mount a comeback, about a decade after it emerged during the Syrian civil war, seizing territory in the Middle East and declaring a “caliphate” before being largely wiped out by a US-led coalition.
According to The Times, Jabbar, 42, recorded a series of videos, some addressed to his family, as he drove to the location where he eventually killed 15 people. “I wanted to record this message for my family. I wanted you to know that I joined ISIS earlier this year,” he said.
He also referred to “animosity” with his family, and said he had considered attacking them as well, but decided not to, apparently out of concern this would shift focus away from his vision of holy war against non-Muslims.
Investigators who searched Jabbar’s home after the attack found supplies that could be used to build a bomb, The Times reported.
‘Largely secular’ upbringing
According to the article, friends and family noticed that Jabbar, a decorated US Army veteran with a $120,000-a-year job as a “senior solutions specialist” at Deloitte, had become more conservative over the last year in his religious outlook.
But those close to him told the newspaper they were entirely unaware of his radicalization, and could not say exactly when it had happened.
Jabbar, an African-American Texas native whose father, originally a Baptist, converted to Islam, grew up in a “largely secular” family, some of whom continued to attend a Baptist church even after his father’s conversion, according to relatives.
According to a half-brother, Jabbar loved school as a child and got good grades. After high school, however, he lost a scholarship at the University of Houston due to heavy partying and drinking that compromised his studies.
In 2007, Jabbar enlisted in the US Army, working in human resources and information technology, and achieving the rank of staff sergeant before his deployment to Afghanistan. He was awarded a Global War on Terrorism service medal, and was even featured by the Army in a 2013 Facebook post, drawing a proud comment from his mother, The Times noted.
Jabbar reportedly told family members he was grateful for his military service. Relatives told The Times that the army “gave [Jabbar] some discipline” and “grounded him.”
After the military, Jabbar studied at Georgia State University. There, one friend said, he showed a growing interest in Islam. But no one reported any signs of extremism. Following his studies, he returned to Texas and began his white-collar professional career.
In recent years, the paper reported, Jabbar began suffering severe financial problems, especially following his divorce from his third wife in 2021, due to subsequent alimony payments and child support for his two daughters and son.
Jabbar’s family and ex-wives told The Times that his behavior became more concerning and erratic over the last year. They said they thought that it was due to the stress from his financial troubles and divorce, but was also connected to stress over global affairs, and was influenced by his religious views. At the time, one previous ex-wife and her husband limited his contact with their children.
‘No part in this community’
Around this time, Jabbar moved to a largely-Muslim neighborhood of mobile homes, located north of Houston, where neighbors described him as a recluse. Congregants at two nearby mosques told The Times they had never seen him attend prayers.
“He wasn’t a member of this congregation, he wasn’t someone that used to come here, and he had no part in this community whatsoever,” said Mohammed Khan, a member of the Bilal Mosque, the closest to his home.
The mosque has drawn attention since the attack, as video surfaced of a guest delivering a presentation that blamed Jews for persistent antisemitism.
Worshipers at the other nearby mosque also said they had never seen Jabbar, with one congregant saying he’d been part of the community since 2008 and had never seen the attacker before.
After the Israel-Hamas war broke out in late 2023 — when the Hamas terror group attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages — Jabbar seemed upset with the violence, according to his half-brother.
“He didn’t like it — he said it was genocide on both sides, inhumane,” the half-brother reported.
Noticeable shift
Over the subsequent year, the veteran reportedly grew noticeably more austere in his religious outlook, growing out his beard and expressing his disapproval of partying and drinking, according to his half-brother.
Around this time, he also began posting audio recordings to the website SoundCloud, espousing conservative religious beliefs, such as warning that music — which some streams of Islam consider forbidden — has the power to lure people “into the things that God had made forbidden to us,” such as alcohol and drugs.
In that recording, from early 2024, Jabbar suggested a link between the release of a recent rap album and a wave of murders in his neighborhood, and said that “the voice of Satan spreading among Prophet Muhammad’s followers, peace be upon him, is a sign of the end times.”
But it is still not clear to investigators when Jabbar came to endorse violence as part of his religious beliefs, The Times reported — though he appears to have “liked” on his SoundCloud account some recordings by others that expressed views used by extremist groups to justify killing non-Muslims.
In the weeks before the attack, relatives said Jabbar didn’t mention any plans to go to New Orleans, though some neighbors told The Times he had said that he was moving there when his lease in Houston came to an end.
In addition, the publication reported, Jabbar seemingly prepared for the trip via an out-of-office reply for his work email, which said he would be taking personal time off.
As they answered questions from the FBI on Thursday, Jabbar’s relatives were still in shock, the paper reported.
“They want to know why he did this,” one brother told the newspaper. “I could not give them an answer. That’s not the brother I know.”
