New Orleans attacker acted alone: FBI

NEW ORLEANS: The FBI on Thursday said that the pickup truck driver responsible for a deadly rampage in New Orleans acted alone.

- Agencies

Officials had said on Wednesday that they were seeking additional potential suspects in an attack being investigated as an act of terrorism.

But Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, said on Thursday that the evidence now shows that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was solely responsible for the attack and professed allegiance to the Islamic State.

New Orleans pressed ahead with plans to reopen the city's famed Bourbon Street on Thursday as investigators kept digging into the background of the US Army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revellers, killing 15 people.

The FBI said it was investigating the attack, which occurred when 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar steered around a police blockade, as a terrorist act.

Investigators believe the driver was inspired by the Islamic State group.

Authorities recovered a black flag of the Islamic State in the truck, and President Joe Biden said he was told by the FBI that Jabbar, a US citizen from Texas, had posted videos to social media hours before the carnage that showed he was motivated by the militant group and expressed a desire to kill.

He was shot to death by police, and the FBI said on Wednesday that it believed he did not act alone.

Investigators found guns and what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the vehicle, along with other explosive devices elsewhere in the French Quarter.

Officials fanned out to serve search warrants and spent hours at a Houston-area home thought to be connected to the investigation.

But as of Thursday morning, no additional arrests were known to have been made, and it was unclear if the FBI was still actively looking for more suspects.

The rampage turned festive Bourbon Street into a macabre scene of maimed victims, bloodied bodies and pedestrians fleeing for safety inside nightclubs and restaurants.