US agencies worry New Orleans truck attack may inspire copycats

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies are concerned about copycat vehicle-ramming attacks following the New Year's Day attack in New Orleans by a U.S. Army veteran, according to a U.S. law enforcement intelligence bulletin published on Friday.

The bulletin was issued a day after the FBI said Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native, was "100 percent inspired" by the Islamic State militant group to drive a truck into New Year's Day revelers in New Orleans, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens of others.

Jabbar, who flew an Islamic State flag from the rear of the truck he had rented, subsequently was killed in a shootout with police.

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center "are concerned about possible copycat or retaliatory attacks," said the intelligence bulletin published by the three agencies and reviewed by Reuters.

Such attacks "are likely to remain attractive for aspiring attackers given vehicles' ease of acquisition and the low skill threshold necessary to conduct an attack," said the bulletin issued to U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The bulletin noted that as of Thursday, Islamic State had not claimed responsibility for the New Orleans attack. But the group's online supporters celebrated it and a Dec. 20 vehicle-ramming in Germany even though that incident did not appear to have been Islamic State-inspired, it said.

Other online users have cited those attacks to make "general calls for violence against specific groups, such as immigrants or Muslims," the bulletin continued.

Islamic State has continued promoting its propaganda and recruiting adherents online despite suffering serious losses to a U.S.-led military coalition that recaptured the "caliphate" the militants overran in Syria and Iraq in 2014.

The bulletin urged law enforcement personnel and private security firms to be aware that in many previous cases attackers who rammed vehicles into crowds were armed and continued their attacks with guns or edged weapons.

Calls for attacks

The Jan. 1 incident in the packed French Quarter of New Orleans was the seventh attack in the United States since 2001 that was inspired by a foreign extremist organization, the bulletin said.

The use of "edged weapons" and firearms has been more common in such attacks but vehicles could present a growing threat, it said.

U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations and "supporter media groups" had released videos, posters, and chants calling for attacks "during the winter holidays generally and New Year's celebrations specifically," the bulletin noted.

On Dec. 30, "a pro-ISIS media unit" encouraged attacks against New Year's Eve celebrations in the U.S. and coalition countries by "posting videos highlighting past ISIS attacks and instructing supporters to further incite violence," it said.

President Joe Biden's administration is keeping President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team apprised of the investigations into the New Orleans attack and an explosion the same day outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, a source familiar with the discussions said.

A lack of security clearances among transition team members was not an issue, said the source, noting that much of what is known has been made public.

Marco Rubio, Trump's nominee for Secretary of State and Mike Waltz, his incoming national security adviser, already have clearances as members of Congress who served on key intelligence committees.