At least 10 people were killed and 30 others were injured after a vehicle plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The attack occurred around 3:15 a.m. local time (10:15 a.m. GMT), when the crowd was gathered on the street for New Year's Eve. "A horrible act of violence," the governor of Louisiana said.
The New Orleans Police Department declared that it was a "terrorist act": the man driving the vehicle wanted to commit carnage. But the FBI is holding back: "This is not a terrorist event", but "improvised explosive devices" were found.
The assailant, who, after finishing his mad dash, fired from the car with an assault rifle but was killed by the officers, two of whom were not seriously injured, was also dead. Authorities have ruled out from the beginning that it could have been an accident, perhaps linked to a state of drunkenness. The killer, Kirkpatrick said, showed "very intentional behavior" and "attempted to run over as many people as possible", and was "very determined to cause the carnage and damage that he did".
Joe Biden, who has been constantly updated and in contact with local authorities, has asked for full clarification and issued a warning: "There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on our nation's communities." But he remained cautious, avoiding making any assumptions. Unlike his successor Donald Trump, who associated the attack with illegal immigration before any official information. "When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the ones we have in our country," he wrote on Truth, "this statement has been consistently denied by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it has proven to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level no one has ever seen before. Our hearts go out to all the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave leaders of the New Orleans Police Department," he added, promising that "the Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as it investigates and recovers from this act of pure evil!"
Shortly afterward, however, the identity of the killer was revealed, a foreigner probably of Arab origin but a US citizen and army veteran with financial problems, partly linked to a divorce case: Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, from Houston, Texas. A name that raised the FBI's antennas, also because the man, who was wearing military gear, had a black ISIS flag on the rear bumper of the pickup, a white Ford F-150 Lightning. Investigators are verifying whether he was a lone wolf radicalized in the US or linked to ISIS or other terrorist organizations, even if for now no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
(Online Union)