The death toll rose to 15 and about 30 currently injured in the massacre in New Orleans that took place in the early hours of Tuesday, New Year's Eve. The incident is now classified as an act of terrorism as former US military officer Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar allegedly had links to the Islamic State radical group.
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Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, a "U.S. citizen from Texas," according to the FBI, rammed a rented van into a crowd celebrating the New Year in a highly touristic French neighborhood of New Orleans, in the southern United States.
Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar had served in the U.S. Army. He served from 2007 to 2015 and was deployed to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010 and retired with the rank of sergeant-major, according to the Defense Ministry.
His brother Abdur Jabbar described him as "love," telling the New York Times that he had been Muslim from a young age but had gone through "a form of radicalization" in recent years.
A friend from a young age told the same newspaper that they met again in 2017 and found that he had become "truly passionate" about his faith.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden addressed citizens last night (local time), calling it a "heinous" attack. He said the attacker, who after stopping the car opened fire on police officers who retaliated and killed him, had uploaded videos on social media showing he was "inspired by Islamic State" and "wanted to kill" as many people as he could.
"The spirit of our New Orleans will never be defeated," he assured, adding that law enforcement was "working tirelessly" to unravel the "heinous" act.
U.S. President-elect Trump linked the terrorist attack to the millions of illegal immigrants in the country, saying "the criminals who come (to the United States) are much worse than the ones we have in our country." Tackling irregular migration was one of the main themes of his election campaign.
Investigators are working to "determine this person's possible connections and ties to terrorist organizations" and whether there were accomplices in the attack in Louisiana, authorities said, without elaborating.
U.S. media said investigators were studying video footage that appeared to show three men and a woman planting explosive devices before the attack took place.
Jabbar had reportedly taken a series of videos which are being investigated by law enforcement.
Multiple officials told CNN that the recordings appear to have been made while driving at night and the suspect is not visible in them.
Authorities believe the videos were taken as he was driving from Texas to Louisiana, though the timing is unclear.
CNN reports that the recordings make reference to his divorce and that he planned to gather his family for a fake feast to kill them.
Jabbar also reportedly talked about how he joined ISIS and talked about dreams he had about joining the terrorist group.
The attack took place with less than three weeks to go until the transfer of power from Democratic President Joe Biden to Donald Trump's Republican successor-elect, in an electrified political climate, which intensified even more after the explosion of the Tesla Cybertruck, which exploded outside US President-elect Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel, late Wednesday night.
A dramatic video of the attack came to light
