Shamsud-Din Jabbar traveled to Egypt, Canada before New Orleans attack, FBI says

The FBI is investigating trips by the man who killed 14 people on Bourbon Street to Egypt and Canada in the months before the New Year’s Day attack — as well as previous visits he made to New Orleans, plus stops at Texas gun stores in recent months, officials said.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar traveled to Cairo, Egypt in the summer of 2023, and to Ontario, Canada afterwards, an FBI official told reporters Sunday. He also made a pair of trips to New Orleans last fall, in the months before the attack, officials said. Officials said they are trying to contact anyone who interacted with Jabbar on those trips as potential witnesses.

Why Jabbar chose New Orleans to carry out the attack remains unclear, officials said.

An ATF agent said explosive materials found with Jabbar and in his residences offered clues that he was inexperienced in the construction and use of explosives.

ATF investigators have “field tested” those materials in the days since the attack, the agent said.

Officials said that if New Orleans police officers had taken longer to respond, Jabbar could have detonated explosive devices left in two spots he chose along his path of destruction using a transmitter found in the rented Ford F-150 truck used to carry out the attack.

“We believe that the transmitter would have functioned and would have worked were it not for the actions of those New Orleans police officers,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Lyonel Myrthil told reporters.

Officials have said Jabbar was inspired by the Islamic State terror group, though they say the precise nature of his relationship to the group remains under investigation.

The FBI still believes Jabbar acted alone in plotting the New Year’s Day attack, officials said.

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia, who works in the agency’s Counterterrorism Division, said that “lone actors and small cells of individuals who radicalize online” pose “the greatest terror threat to our homeland” at the present.

Law enforcement recovered a pair of Meta glasses — so-called “smart glasses” that capture video, make calls and offer other features  — from Jabbar’s body after he was killed in a shootout with police, officials said.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.