An ISIS flag reportedly found on the truck Shamsud-Din Jabbar used in the deadly car attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day highlights the persistent danger posed by the terrorist group, which continues to produce propaganda in line to try to foment violence around the world, experts and US officials say.
The Islamic State’s exact role in the attack remains unclear. But the discovery of the flag, as well as two possible improvised explosive devices in the area, led federal authorities to investigate the suspect’s possible ties to ISIS, law enforcement officials said. President Joe Biden said Wednesday night that the FBI told him that Jabbar had posted videos “that indicated he was inspired by ISIS.”
The attack in New Orleans, which killed at least 15 people, follows repeated warnings from U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials about an elevated terrorist threat over the past year fueled by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the Israel’s response.
Authorities have cited the ISIS branch in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-K, as a particular danger.
The October arrest of an Afghan accused of planning an Election Day attack in Oklahoma City, as well as recent plots in France, Sweden and elsewhere, highlight the growing threat posed by ISIS-K, officials say and counterterrorism experts.
“The New Orleans terrorist attack simply confirms what many in the counterterrorism community have been saying for the past year, which is that ISIS remains a tenacious and persistent threat and that it is simply not going away,” said Colin Clarke of the Soufan Group. , a consultancy that focuses on global security issues.
“While we do not yet know the extent of ISIS involvement, this was either inspired by the group or directed from abroad,” Clarke said.
Aaron Zelin, an expert on jihadist groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank, said using a car to attack pedestrians is a typical “low-tech” tactic that ISIS extremists have used. in previous attacks in the West for more than 20 years. recent years, along with assaults with a knife.
To ram a car you don’t need access to explosives, specific weapons or a sophisticated plan, Zelin said.
If the New Orleans case is confirmed to be an ISIS-backed or inspired attack, it would be the first lethal assault committed by someone connected to or acting on behalf of the group on U.S. soil since 2017, when an ISIS supporter was driving a truck. a bike lane in New York City, killing eight people.
In November 2016, authorities said, ISIS propaganda inspired a Somali refugee to drive a car into a crowd at Ohio State University and then stab students who were trying to help those hit by his car. Police shot and killed the attacker. From 2014 to the fall of 2018, there were 16 vehicular attacks in the United States and Europe “led by jihadists,” including, but not limited to, people inspired by or connected to ISIS, according to a report by the think tank New America.
ISIS, a global Sunni Islamist group that once controlled a vast swath of territory in Iraq and Syria, is weaker than at its peak 10 years ago. Western intelligence agencies have generally been successful in countering the threat posed by the group, Zelin told NBC News. “Overall, most attack plots have been dismantled” in the West, he said.
“But it only takes one occasion for something to happen and, unfortunately, that leads people to view the threat differently,” he said.
In early August, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies helped Austria defeat an ISIS plot to kill hundreds of people at Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna, CIA deputy director David Cohen said at the time. The shows were cancelled.
Robust use of online advertising.
Over the past decade, ISIS’s online propaganda has provided guidance to its followers on how to carry out attacks by stabbing people or ramming cars into crowds, Zelin said.
“None of this is new. They just continue to throw it every day. And from their perspective, the hope is that someone will stay with him,” he said.
With branches in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, ISIS has invested heavily in propaganda in multiple languages, often targeting its message to Muslims abroad, experts say.
The group has advised patience in its efforts to attack the United States and other Western countries since it lost its self-proclaimed “caliphate” territory in Iraq and Syria in 2019, said Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, a non-governmental organization that aims to disrupt extremists’ use of the Internet.
Still, Webber said, “he has remained very active online and a strong official and support network of propaganda outlets has flourished across all platforms.”
ISIS has also “stepped up” its operations in recent months to carry out or guide attacks against its perceived enemies, Webber said.
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria last month could open a potential strategic opportunity for ISIS as it seeks to exploit a political and security vacuum, experts said.
“With ISIS gaining ground in Syria, there is a high probability that the group will intensify its propaganda in an effort to inspire followers, fanatics and extremists around the world,” said Soufan Group’s Clarke. “ISIS is looking to build momentum into 2025 and will likely increase its operational tempo, including focusing on attacks in the West.”
At its peak in 2015, ISIS controlled a vast swath of territory in Syria and Iraq, which it used to organize attacks in the region and abroad.
A U.S.-led military campaign, which relied on U.S. airpower, Kurdish ground forces, and Iraqi government troops, inflicted significant losses on ISIS and ultimately drove the group back.
In its annual assessment of global threats last year, the US intelligence community said: “ISIS will remain a centralized global organization even as it has been forced to rely on regional branches.”
He added that the group will try to “conduct and inspire global attacks against the West and its interests.”
