FBI warns of potential ‘retaliatory attacks’ after deadly New Orleans assault

Federal law enforcement agencies have issued a bulletin warning of possible “copycat or retaliatory attacks” following the New Year’s truck attack in New Orleans. The bulletin cites the ease with which someone can commit a terror attack using a vehicle.

Around 3 a.m. on Jan. 1, a suspect drove a rented pick-up truck through Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens of others. Police later killed the suspect, identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an Army veteran inspired by the terror group ISIS.

ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

The FBI released the bulletin Thursday, Jan. 2, to law enforcement agencies, as reported by Reuters.

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The bulletin states that vehicle attacks “are likely to remain attractive for aspiring attackers given vehicles’ ease of acquisition and the low skill threshold necessary to conduct an attack.”

The surge in vehicle-ramming attacks “may inspire similarly motivated actors to adopt the same method,” the bulletin said.

The federal agency also warns that such perpetrators may have access to secondary weapons, such as explosive devices or guns.

Investigators said Thursday that Jabbar had a rifle and handgun at the time of the attack and had planted two IEDs, which authorities later found and neutralized.

The Bourbon Street incident marks the seventh assault in the United States inspired by a foreign terror group since 2001 and the first deadly one since 2017, the bulletin stated.

Online foreign terror organizations and various groups that support them celebrated the New Orleans attack. CBS News reported they called for violence during the holiday season.

In December, a man drove a car through a Christmas market in Germany, killing five people and injuring more than 200 others.