Did New Orleans attack suspect act alone? Authorities conduct an urgent search.
Federal and local authorities are urgently sweeping the French Quarter and the rest of New Orleans on the eve of one of its biggest events of the year, the Sugar Bowl college football game, to see whether anyone else may have helped suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar in a deadly attack on New Year's Eve revelers.
Multiple officials said Wednesday they suspected others may be involved in the attack.
"We're doing two things,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said at an afternoon news conference. “We're hunting some bad people down, and we're securing the city too. We're getting ready for a Sugar Bowl,” which was moved from New Year’s Day to Thursday afternoon because of the attack.
The FBI is leading the investigation into what it calls "an act of terrorism,” saying the driver of the pickup truck that rammed into a Bourbon Street crowd of revelers, killing 15 and injuring more than 30, had a flag from the terrorist group Islamic State on his vehicle’s trailer hitch.
The FBI identified the driver as Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran from Texas. The federal law enforcement agency said in a statement that it is working “to determine the subject's potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.”
The FBI also said weapons and a potential IED were located in the subject’s vehicle, and that other "potential IEDs were also located in the French Quarter."
“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference.
The FBI’s focus is on “a range of suspects,” Duncan also said.
Duncan said authorities also had safely neutralized and removed two potential improvised explosive devices, and were searching for more in the French Quarter, the heavily congested epicenter of New Orleans’ tourist area. Tens of thousands of fans were already in town celebrating in advance of the bowl game.
“Right now, we don’t want to rule anything else out," Duncan said, "so that's why we're asking if anyone has had any interaction with the deceased subject Jabbar in the last 72 hours.” She did not elaborate on why the FBI believed other suspects were involved.
Duncan asked the public to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALLFBI or on its digital tip line.
Mobilizing the National Guard and police sweeps of the streets
Landry said he had mobilized about 100 members of the National Guard in a military police unit to help protect New Orleans and the Sugar Bowl while the investigation into the attack continues.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said police were scouring the French Quarter for additional improvised explosive devices or other threats but that so far, they had found none.
“It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could,” she said, adding that, “This was more serious, more complex, based on the information we have right now.”
Officers are “walking down the streets, every street in the French Quarter, looking for suspicious packages, bags, ice chests, you name it, and they have been walking it as a grid,” Kirkpatrick said. “We've been doing the same thing on Poydras (Street) and all the accesses into the Superdome.”
Bomb dogs are also sweeping the area to locate explosives, and police are “locking down” the area all around the massive sports and entertainment complex before the game, now scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
Also, law enforcement officials searched a Airbnb rental in New Orleans that may have been connected to the manufacture of IEDs tied to the attack, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told NBC News' Lester Holt in an interview.
“We know that these individuals had rented the house were using it for that purpose," Murrill said. Airbnb did not respond to a request for comment, NBC News said
Former senior U.S. counterterrorism official Javed Ali likened the early Wednesday attack to the bombing at the Boston Marathon in 2013, which shut down much of the city for several days as authorities hunted for the assailants.
Based on the FBI statements about how Jabbar didn't act alone, Ali said, "I would infer that there are accomplices who helped in the either the car ramming attack, or perhaps other aspects of the attack that weren't realized, like the improvised explosive devices ? and they are on the loose."
'A very fluid' investigation
In an evening address, President Joe Biden described a “very fluid” investigation in which the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies are looking for clues as to why the suspect acted – and whether he had accomplices in the New Orleans attack and possibly an explosion in Las Vegas.
The investigation, Biden said, is needed “to determine what happened, why it happened and whether there is any continuing threat to public safety.”
Biden said the FBI reported to him that “mere hours before the attack, (Jabbar) posted videos on social media indicating that is inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill. The ISIS flag was found in his vehicle, which he rented to conduct this attack. Possible explosives were found in the vehicle as well and more explosive were were found nearby."
Biden also said authorities are looking into "whether there's any possible connection" between the New Orleans attack and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck near the covered entrance of Trump International Hotel Las Vegas Wednesday morning that killed one person and injured seven.
“The law enforcement intelligence community are continuing to look for any connections, associations or co-conspirators,” Biden said. “We have nothing additional report at this time, the investigation is continuing to be active, and no one should jump to conclusions.”
The FBI, Justice Department's National Security Division, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and federal prosecutors in Louisiana are working with state and local law enforcement in response to the attack, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Did New Orleans attack suspect act alone? Urgent search underway.