By Eireann Van Natta, Daily Caller News Foundation | January 07, 2025
A political agenda combined with a lack of information on the New Orleans terrorist likely culminated in Shamsud-Din Jabbar escaping the FBI’s radar, former agents told the Caller. The terrorist who allegedly plowed a truck into a crowd on New Years pledged allegiance to ISIS, reportedly possessed an ISIS flag, and even traveled to Egypt — yet no action was taken by the FBI for months.
Jabbar was identified by authorities as the driver of the Ford pickup truck that rammed through a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans last Wednesday morning, killing 15 people. He was subsequently killed by police in a shootout.
After initial reports that claimed Jabbar had accomplices, the FBI stated the next day he acted alone. The bureau found an ISIS flag, weapons, and potential IEDs in Jabbar’s vehicle.
The Caller asked former FBI agents how the agency seemingly took no action for months despite numerous glaring red flags.
“As for Jabbar, the FBI is rarely able to keep tabs on someone unless they have information indicating that they should be,” FBI whistleblower Garret O’Boyle told the Caller. “If Jabbar wasn’t on their radar, it’s because no one in his circles reported him. If he was on their radar, they were probably involved with his radicalization.”
The FBI is constrained on taking action when an individual is not explicitly calling for violence, former FBI Special Agent Chris Piehota told the Caller.
“The FBI has a quandary of, okay, we want to protect our citizenry and our communities, but we also have to look out for the civil liberties and privacy of our citizens,” he said.
He pointed to the radicalization of terrorists on social media.
“Adversaries have become much more skilled in how to use social media to reach into people’s communities in the United States and recruit [U.S.] citizens to their cause, and that’s what’s going on,” Piehota, author of Wanted: The FBI I Once Knew, said. He noted the timeline for radicalization has rapidly sped up over the years.
“Radicalization used to be a process that you could track over about 12 to 18 months — now it’s down to weeks,” he told the Caller.
Hours before the attack, Jabbar pledged allegiance to ISIS in a series of videos posted on Facebook. The first video was posted at 1:29 a.m., according to FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia.
“In the first video, Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers,'” Raia stated in a press conference Thursday.
“Additionally, he stated that he had joined ISIS before this summer,” Raia continued.
Jabbar traveled to Egypt alone in 2023 for around a month, his half-brother told ABC News. Law enforcement officials informed the outlet that Jabbar’s “foreign travel” is now under investigation.
The Biden administration is laser focused on domestic terrorism and social media radicalization — but apparently not for individuals pledging allegiance to ISIS.
Biden’s DOJ and FBI have raided the homes of pro-life protesters and reportedly surveilled school board parents. The DOJ has also prosecuted over 1,500 January 6 defendants and is considering charging 200 more nearly four years later.
“The American people sadly chose security over freedom on 9/12/2001,” FBI whistleblower Steve Friend told the Caller.
“Now the FBI is the arbiter of wrong-think. The bureau hires communists and DEI employees. It targets citizens who believe in small government because they represent a threat to the FBI’s ability to continue expanding its authority. And I fear the country will double down on the same decision it made a quarter-century ago.”
The FBI — including its New Orleans field office — has fully embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in its recruitment. Last year, former agents and analysts alleged that the bureau relaxed hiring standards to prioritize DEI.
The Biden-Harris Administration launched a National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism in 2021 after January 6, which took aim at “perceptions of government overreach.” That same year, the FBI and DHS wrote a strategic intelligence assessment which highlighted “anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists.”
“Right now, I think the FBI priorities require reassessment,” Piehota told the Caller. “I think the outgoing administration had a certain set of social and political ideas that of course, they wanted to focus on, and that may not have been indicative of the threat environment that was emerging and present.”
Biden claimed in 2023 that “white supremacy” posed the most dangerous terrorist threat to the United States. Weeks before the terrorist attack in New Orleans, the Biden-Harris administration published the first-ever National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate.
“We’ve become so timid, and we’ve become so risk averse on anybody saying that they’re offended, that we’re willing to allow people to be injured in our communities for someone saying that we’ve offended them,” Piehota told the Caller.
“I think that’s a terrible place to be, and I think it’s ineffective and it’s weak, and I think our citizens deserve better from our security community.”
Eireann Van Natta is an intelligence state reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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