A Texas man driving a rented pickup truck with a moutned Islamic State flag waving from the trailer hitch mowed down dozens of Americans in the state of Louisiana.
According to local eye witnesses, at least 15 people were killed and 30 more wounded when a driver of the pickup truck sped up the nation’s most famous party strip on a killing spree.
The driver has been identified by the FBI as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar. Jabbar was a U.S. born citizen and an Army veteran.
Jabbar was killed by New Orleans police officers. The FBI has been searching for additional suspects in an investigation that quickly stretched to Houston, Texas.
Jabbar was wearing a ballistics vest and helmet when he was killed, according to a memo sent to Louisiana State Police on Wednesday. An Airbnb rental on Mandeville Street where he was staying went up in flames Wednesday in an arson, according to the memo, which says “bomb-making material was present in the residence.”
Police also found a pipe bomb containing nails and suspected C4 explosives inside an ice chest at Bourbon Street and Orleans Avenue, while a similar suspected device was found at JAX Brewery but deemed not to be explosive.
Another was found in the 600 block of Bourbon Street, and a fourth “possible device” was found in a purple suitcase near North Rampart Street and Esplanade.
The two confirmed pipe bombs were both “wired for remote detonation, and a corresponding remote control was discovered inside the suspect’s truck,” the memo states. Also in the rented truck were two mason jars that contained suspected liquid explosives.
The bulletin says camera footage identified a second vehicle registered to the same owner as the one Jabbar drove into the crowds. Cameras caught three men and a woman placing the first homemade bomb on Bourbon Street, according to the memo.
“Both vehicles involved have a history of multiple border crossings into Mexico at the Eagle Pass and Brownsville Points of Entry,” it states.
