Late Sunday morning, officials in New Orleans, Louisiana, held a press conference to update the public regarding the state of their investigation into the New Year’s Day terrorist attack launched by (the now-deceased) Shamsud-Din Jabbar.
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There were a number of details shared by the FBI and ATF Special Agents in Charge (SACs), not least of which was the revelation that Jabbar had traveled out of the country (to Egypt and Canada) in 2023 and had made at least two reconnaissance treks to New Orleans in the months leading up to the attack.
On his October New Orleans visits, Jabbar used Meta smart glasses while riding a bicycle to film the French Quarter. He was also wearing the glasses at the time of the attack, but they were not activated to livestream it.
Now We Know Why NOLA Terrorist Tried to Burn Down His Airbnb
During the press conference, FBI SAC Lyonel Myrthil referred to several clips of surveillance video that showed Jabbar in the hours leading up to the attack.
The New Orleans terror attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, used Meta smart glasses to film the French Quarter before the attack, the FBI reports. The glasses, disguised as regular eyewear, allowed him to record and potentially livestream videos hands-free. pic.twitter.com/M9Y9o1gTrG
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 5, 2025
The first three to four seconds of the clip above purports to show Jabbar looking in the mirror while wearing the Meta glasses.
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Then, there is about a minute of surveillance video of Jabbar out on the street with a wheeled cooler as he prepared to place one of the IEDs. (Per the stated timeline provided by Myrthil, this would have been sometime prior to 1:53 a.m. on January 1.) We see Jabbar, in a long tan coat, with what appears to be a phone in his right hand, holding onto the cooler handle with his left. He appears to be waiting for something (or someone?) and checking his phone. After about 40 seconds, he starts walking, towing the cooler. We then see him at what appears to be a slightly different location, next to a trashcan, cooler still in tow, phone still in hand. At the 54-second mark, he looks up and appears to be waving at someone (in the general vicinity of the surveillance camera). After that, he steps off the curb, leaving the cooler behind.
Next, we see Jabbar walking in the street, carrying a blue bucket-style cooler in his right hand. Per the stated timeline, this would be sometime prior to 2:20 a.m. And, of course, we know by 3:15 a.m., he was back behind the wheel of the Ford F-150, barreling down Bourbon Street.
As noted in the presser, authorities now believe that the individual(s) who moved the first cooler from the point where Jabbar left it at Bourbon and St. Peter to Bourbon and Orleans (initially thought to be accomplices of Jabbar) were simply “unknowing Bourbon Street visitors grabbed the cooler’s handle and moved it.” Odd and flukey, no doubt. But considering the hour and the setting, not all that difficult to believe.
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But the big question here is to whom was Jabbar waving as he left the first cooler? Does that not imply that he was working with someone else? Is it possible he knew the surveillance camera was there and was waving to it (rather than a person) simply to draw attention to his presence at the location after the fact? Sure. It’s possible. But why would someone who purportedly set fire to the rental home where he was staying in a bid to destroy evidence go out of his way to draw attention to himself leaving an IED (which he, presumably, intended to detonate)?
Something really does not add up here. I guess we’ll have to add this to the list.
The full footage released by the FBI (thus far) may be viewed below:
