FBI returns to Houston home of New Orleans terror attack suspect
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- As federal officials keep digging into the past of the suspect in the deadly New Orleans attack, FBI Houston was back at the home where he lived on Friday.
ABC13 confirmed the FBI was conducting court-ordered law enforcement activity. The Harris County Sheriff's Office assisted in securing a perimeter around the property.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, who allegedly plowed into crowds of New Orleans revelers on the morning of New Year's Day, lived in a mobile home on Crescent Peak Drive in north Harris County.
On Friday, a gray car that is registered to a Beaumont address connected to Jabbar was towed from the property.
Before ramming his car into the crowd, the FBI said Jabbar placed two coolers containing IEDs in the downtown New Orleans area.
A senior law enforcement official told ABC News the device had steel pipe, nails for shrapnel, and a relatively rare explosive chemical, which we're not naming. It also had a remote detonation capability.
RELATED: 'Precursor chemicals' found in NOLA attack suspect's Houston home, where he moved out of days before
Jabbar was born and raised in Beaumont. ABC News spoke with his half-brother Abdur, who described him as charismatic, thoughtful, and compassionate. He said Jabbar had a good job in IT but was isolated.
"He was a practicing Muslim as far as I knew, but this type of extremism and radicalization, I didn't know anything about any of this," Abdur said.
Dr. Evan Perkoski, an associate professor and director of undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut's Department of Political Science, said more research is needed on how a person becomes radicalized because it is hard to know what radicalizes one person.
"You can have 10 different people in the same circumstance. You're going to get 10 different reactions and outcomes and that's why it's so hard to know what types of experiences radicalize someone or what contributes to that because what makes someone radicalized might have no effect in another circumstance," Perkoski said. "In this case, we do see some things that maybe push them towards radicalization, and it really has to do with mental health."
An ISIS flag was found at the scene of the attack in New Orleans. However, the FBI said on Thursday the attack appears to be "inspired" in cyberspace and not "directed."
After the attack, the FBI sent a bulletin to local agencies warning about copycat threats.
The bulletin says there have been seven foreign terrorist organization-inspired attacks since 2001 that have used a vehicle as an attack method.
"Official ISIS messaging in the group's flagship products from 2014 and 2016 called for attackers to use vehicles as weapons in addition to edged weapons and firearms, and pro-ISIS media outlets and the group's online supports regularly recirculate or re-purpose those products in a variety of online forums."
However, ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Now, ABC News has confirmed law enforcement is looking into Jabbar's foreign travel as part of its ongoing investigation.
Abdur said his brother Shamsud went to Egypt alone for a month back in 2023, saying he was going "because it was cheap and beautiful."
Multiple sources say investigators are looking into why he went, who he interacted with, and if he was radicalized before or after the international trip.
Perkoski said technology can play a role in radicalization and recruitment, though that doesn't appear to be what happened with Jabbar.
"Technology and social media have enabled militant groups and insurgents and terrorists to reach populations they never could before. They can use translators, they can use AI, they can use social media and all these different things, creating flyers, and talking on message boards to reach people in different countries who may be sympathetic to their goals," Perkoski said. "Maybe (Jabbar) saw how terrorists can get publicity and decided that's what (he) wanted to do."
Perkoski said whether it's a small act of violence or deadly terrorism, depression, isolation, loneliness, and relationship troubles are all experiences that can lead someone to radicalization more than others.
Abdur said he wonders if his brother was suffering from mental health struggles that his family did not know about or if isolation affected him.
He said did not know why his half-brother would commit such an act, adding that he found out about what happened from his aunt, and he was in disbelief.
READ MORE: Timeline of New Orleans attack: Suspect's marital, financial woes come into focus
Law enforcement sources tell 13 Investigates that threats from "lone wolf" attackers, which Jabbar appears to be since he was alone in New Orleans, are worrying because they typically keep to themselves.
The threat from them is so grave that the FBI even has a manual with warning signs that point out when someone may be down a radical path.
They include disposing of meaningful belongings in an unusual manner, especially with a sense of urgency, unusual goodbyes, and planning or pursuing suspicious travel.
RELATED: Read the FBI's full report on U.S. Violent Extremist Mobilization Indicators
Perkoski said because there's no clear trend on what leads someone to radicalization, it makes the law enforcement's job more difficult.
"The FBI, DOJ, and all other police agencies have really been doing a great job over the last several decades. The fact that we don't have many more of these attacks is really a testament to how good of a job they're doing," he said. "Think about the difference between the FBI's job and a terrorist's job. The FBI has to safeguard all locations, every person, all different places of potential attack, and a terrorist or a lone wolf just has to find one opening and one weakness and one soft target, one group of people."
Perkoski pointed out that neither the New Orleans nor the attack in Las Vegas, where a Tesla Cybertruck exploded, were sophisticated.
"They didn't need any financial or organizational assistance. They were rented cars. They were simple bombs, gas canisters, and fireworks, or just using the car as a car and driving into people, and those are incredibly difficult to stop," he said. "What this shows to me and underscores is that terrorists are really creative. They kind of find weaknesses encountered in our defenses. They find soft targets."
He said the major threats to domestic terrorism in the U.S. tend to come from anti-government and xenophobic extremists rather than foreign terrorist organizations.
"The domestic landscape and threat landscape absolutely is difficult to predict," he said. "It is definitely threatening, coming from a variety of sources, and for a while now, people have been saying that the foreign threat is on the rise, and it's going to lead to more domestic attacks, and that is one of the things we tragically saw on January 1st."
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