This is a difficult profile to analyze. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the suspect who died in the vehicle attack in New Orleans which left at least 15 dead this Wednesday, January 1, was “inspired” by the Islamic State group and is said to have become radicalized in recent years. A real estate agent and former military man, the man was a 42-year-old American citizen born in Texas.
US President Joe Biden explained that “just hours before the attack”, the suspect had “published videos on social networks indicating that he was inspired by ISIS” and testifying to a ” desire to kill. The New Orleans police chief said the man was “fiercely determined to wreak carnage”, while an American law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity to the New York Times that Shamsud-Din Jabbar had “pledged allegiance to Daesh” in several videos posted on his Facebook page the night before the attack.
But his brother, Abdur Jabbar, who spoke to the American newspaper, speaks of him rather as “a sweetheart, a nice guy, a friend, very intelligent, attentive”. It indicates that the suspect had converted to Islam at a young age, stressing that “what he did does not represent Islam. It is rather a form of radicalization.” A childhood friend also contacted by the New York daily, Chris Pousson, remembers a person who did not “create problems, had good grades”. Recounting having reconnected with him in 2017 via social networks, this retired soldier indicates that he “was never threatening, but you could see that he had become really intense about his faith”.
Deployed to Afghanistan
In a video dating from 2020, since removed from social networks, the suspect praised, with a southern American accent, his services as a real estate agent and praised his merits. “Good evening. I am Shamsud-Din Jabbar, property manager […]. I was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas and now live in Houston. I have stayed here all my life, with the exception of my trips for the army,” he proudly recounts his military past.
He says he worked for the army in the “human resources” and “IT” sectors. In this video, he poses in front of a screen on which is written in large: “Discipline”. The FBI said he left the military “honorably.”
The Defense Department noted that he was in the Army from 2007 to 2015, including a deployment to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, finishing as a staff sergeant. He was also a reservist from 2015 to 2020. In his video, Shamsud-Din Jabbar says he “learned” in the army “what it means to be responsive and take everything seriously […] to make sure things go smoothly.” “What really sets me apart from other (real estate) agents is my ability to be a tough negotiator,” he says.
A profile far removed from the assertions of Donald Trump, who blamed immigration just a few hours after the first information on what was happening in New Orleans. “When I said that the criminals coming into our country were far worse than those inside, that statement was consistently refuted by Democrats and the ‘Fake News Media,’ but it was proven to be true. The crime rate in our country has reached an unprecedented level,” he wrote on his social network Truth Social. An analysis which is largely inspired by information relayed very quickly by the American media Fox News, which affirmed that Shamsun-Din Jabbaer had arrived in the United States from Mexico.
“A marginal” for several years
The profile of the driver of the van, however, shows a certain loss of control over his life in recent years. His criminal record includes only two charges for minor offenses: theft in 2002 and driving with an invalid license in 2005, according to the New York Times. Shamsud-Din Jabbar earned a degree in computer science at Georgia State University after spending two years studying between 2015 and 2017, a university spokesperson told AFP . If he had often recounted the difficulties of returning to a normal life as a veteran, he had worked since 2021 in the consulting firm Deloitte, with an annual salary exceeding around $120,000.
But the New York Times also says that the 42-year-old man was experiencing personal difficulties. Married twice and awaiting divorce in 2022, he expressed financial difficulties in a letter to his wife’s lawyer. According to the newspaper, he wrote that he had lost $28,000 in his agency, and offered to sell their house and share the proceeds of the sale.
Dwayne Marsh, the new husband of Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s ex-wife, told the New York Times that the latter had been acting less and less coherently in recent years, “going crazy, cutting his hair.” Dwayne Marsh said he and his wife no longer allowed the two daughters she shared with the Army veteran, ages 15 and 20, to spend time with him.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar had been living in a rented house in the Muslim neighborhood of north Houston for nearly a year. A neighbor described to the New York Times a man who kept himself apart from the rest of society, generally staying inside his home. A relatively different image from that of her former neighbor in Houston between 2021 and 2024, who described a helpful and smiling man, often helping her carry her shopping. Even if she also claimed that the father of three children was a “marginal”. “I was the only person he really talked to,” she added, saying he was “not a terrorist” in her eyes. However, it was he who committed one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent years, while the American police are still looking for possible accomplices.