AT least 15 people have been killed and dozens more injured in New Orleans, the United States, after a man smashed a pick-up truck into New Year’s revellers in an attack that authorities have linked to ISIL (ISIS).
US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the FBI had informed him that the suspect had posted videos on social media indicating that he was inspired by the Middle East-based armed group.
“To all the people in New Orleans who are grieving, I grieve with you,” President Biden said in remarks from the presidential retreat at Camp David.
“Our nation grieves with you.”
Biden also said authorities were investigating any possible links to the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a hotel belonging to US President-elect Donald Trump in Las Vegas on Wednesday, but there was so far “nothing to report on that score.”
The FBI said earlier on Wednesday that it did not believe that the suspect, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, had acted alone and that authorities had found an ISIL flag on his truck’s trailer hitch.
“The FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organisations,” Alethea Duncan, the assistant special agent in charge of the New Orleans FBI, told reporters.
“We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” Duncan said. “We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates.”
Duncan said potential improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were located in the city’s French Quarter and had been rendered safe.
Wednesday’s attack occurred at about 3:15am (09:15 GMT) near the intersection of Canal and Bourbon streets, a busy pedestrian thoroughfare in the heart of New Orleans’s historic French Quarter.
The New Orleans Police Department said that the suspect’s car struck multiple pedestrians before crashing.
Jabbar, a US citizen and army veteran, was shot dead by police after opening fire on responding officers, authorities said.
Videos shared online and verified by Al Jazeera show people fleeing the scene of the incident after gunshots rang out.