(The Hill/NEXSTAR) – Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R), New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and representatives from the FBI and ATF held a news conference on Thursday to update the public on the New Year’s Day terror attack that left 15 dead and dozens of others injured.
The briefing comes a day after a driver, identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar from Texas, drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street. The incident is being investigated as a terrorist attack after an Islamic State flag was found in the vehicle.
“It was premeditated, and an evil act,” Christopher Raia the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division said.
Raia said Jabbar had obtained the Ford F-150 used in the attack on Dec. 30 before driving it from Houston to New Orleans on Dec. 31. During this time, he posted several videos professing “his support for ISIS” to an online platform, Raia said.
A timeline provided by Raia suggested that Jabbar had planted to IED devices near the attack site in New Orleans before returning later to ram through a blocked-off area on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people. The suspect was also killed during a shootout with police.
The FBI also currently believes Jabbar acted alone, after saying Wednesday it was possible he had accomplices.
“We do not believe, at this point, these people [seen near the IED devices in surveillance footage] are involved in any way. We want to speak to them as witnesses,” Raia said.
Anyone who may have known Jabbar, and anyone who may have been present near the areas where the IEDs were found, have been urged to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit the information online at fbi.gov/bourbonstreetattack.
The FBI has since recovered several devices linked to Jabbar, including three phones and two laptops, the latter from a home in Mandeville, Louisiana. A fire later started at that residence, an official from the ATF said at Thursday’s news conference.
Raia also said there was “no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas,” while noting it was still “very early” in the investigation.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the scene of the incident was cleaned overnight, and that Bourbon Street is planning to reopen on Thursday before the Sugar Bowl, which was rescheduled in light of the attack.
“I want to reassure the public that the city of New Orleans is not only ready for gameday today, but we’re ready to continue to host large-scale evens in our city because we are built to host at every single turn,” Cantrell said.
