New Orleans attacker had a transmitter to set off explosive devices, F.B.I. says

The driver who killed 14 people in an ISIS-inspired attack by plowing into a crowded New Orleans street on New Year’s Day had planned to use a transmitter to detonate two explosive devices he had placed nearby, authorities have said.

The FBI and ATF said in a joint statement Friday that the explosives were placed on Bourbon Street, which Shamsud-Din Jabbar later turned into a scene of devastation.

Neither of the explosive devices were detonated, and it remains unclear whether the failure was due to a malfunction, lack of activation, or another issue. The transmitter and two guns were recovered from Jabbar’s truck, the statement said, and are being transported to an FBI laboratory for testing.

Federal investigators examining the attack say that Jabbar used a very rare explosive compound in the two devices, two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told NBC News.

Authorities are investigating how Jabbar acquired the knowledge to create this homemade explosive, the officials said.

Those officials say that the explosive has never been used in a U.S. terror attack or incident, nor in any European terror attack. A key question for investigators is how Jabbar learned about the compound and how he managed to produce it. 

The carnage unfolded when Jabbar, 42, drove onto a sidewalk with a pick-up truck, bypassing a police vehicle that had been parked to block cars from pedestrians celebrating on the crowded street.

Police killed Jabbar, a Texas-born U.S. citizen and an Army veteran, moments after the attack.

Jabbar had also set fire to a short-term rental house in New Orleans on Mandeville Street in New Orleans where bomb making materials were found, Friday’s joint statement added, “in his effort to destroy it and other evidence of his crime.”

The New Orleans Fire Department responded to the fire at around 5:18 a.m., after Jabbar had carried out the attack on Bourbon Street, but the fire had “extinguished itself” before spreading to other rooms, allowing for the “recovery of evidence, including pre-cursors for bomb making material and a privately made device suspected of being a silencer for a rifle,” the statement said.

The agencies said in the statement that it was determined that Jabbar was the only person who could have set the fire.

The FBI has stated that the investigation remains ongoing and it has not changed its posture that Jabbar acted alone.

A mourning period for the victims of the attack will begin Monday, when President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to New Orleans.