For most Americans, January 1 arrived with a renewed sense of hope for making America great again — the restoration of our nation’s domestic and foreign policies after four long years of abject malfeasance under the inept and vacuous “leadership” of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

But some families rose to the tragic loss of loved ones, and the rest of us to a stark reminder that terrorist threats to our nation are sometimes homegrown, and soft targets for such acts of violence abound. It was a hard reminder of other Islamist assaults on American soil since the 9/11 attack.

Such was the case in New Orleans in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, when an Islamist, under the flag of the Islamic State, used a vehicle as a weapon for the mass murder of civilians on Bourbon Street in NOLA’s French Quarter. He killed 14 and injured dozens more before being shot dead by police.

According to police, security barriers installed at the ends of Bourbon Street in 2017 to prevent such an attack, were not present because they were being replaced.

The assailant, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, was a 42-year-old realtor from Beaumont, Texas, whose violent radicalization was likely accelerated by personal circumstances, including a second divorce (complete with protection orders by his ex-wife) and virtual bankruptcy. He had only minor criminal offenses dating back almost 20 years.

Jabbar was an Army veteran, a staff sergeant serving as a human resources and IT specialist for 10 years. He had deployed to Afghanistan for a year in 2009.

Notably, that was the same year as another domestic Islamist attack associated with the Army and Texas. Army officer Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 14 soldiers and security personnel, as well as a child before birth, and wounded 29 others at Fort Hood, Texas.

Jabbar rented the EV truck used in the attack through the Turo car-sharing app. There is a record of the truck crossing our southern border at Eagle Pass, Texas, last month, but it is not clear if that has any relevance to the attack. The attack mirrors other recent assaults using vehicles, including the Islamist assault at a German Christmas market on December 20, killing five people and injuring at least 235 others. Likewise, it is reminiscent of the November 2021 attack on the Waukesha Wisconsin Christmas parade when an anti-Semitic black supremacist drove his SUV into a crowd of white people, killing six and injuring more than 50 people.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell immediately described the mass murder as a “terrorist attack,” and New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick stated the assailant was “hellbent on creating carnage” and then shot two NOPD officers. But the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge for NOLA, Alethea Duncan, declared, “This is not a terrorist event,” without any confirmation, apparently an attempt to obfuscate the intent. Hours later, the FBI issued a statement indicating it was “working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism.” Duncan then said the FBI “did not believe that the suspect was solely responsible,” adding, “We don’t want to rule anything out.” That after earlier ruling out it was terrorism…

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) condemned the FBI misinformation, and declared: “Tell the American people the truth. … I will promise you this: I will, when it is appropriate in this investigation is complete, you will find out what happened and who was responsible, or I will raise fresh hell and I will chase those in the federal government who are responsible for telling us what happened like they stole Christmas.”

There were two explosive devices found in ice chests near the historic Catholic cathedral in the French Quarter, and Jabbar is suspected of planting both those devices, though it is believed he acted alone.

According to an FBI review of Jabbar’s digital footprint, he wanted his attack to send the message that there was a “war between the believers and disbelievers,” in other words, to inspire other Islamist attacks.

The mosque the attacker attended is being uncooperative and is referring questions to the radical Islamist advocacy organization, CAIR.

Biden, in his constant state of confusion, declared that the FBI reported to him the assailant “was inspired by ISIS” but then said, “No one should jump to conclusions.”

In a textbook case of “too little, too late,” Attorney General Merrick Garland promised to “deploy every available resource to conduct this investigation.”

For his part, Donald Trump errantly implied, based on early reports the assailant had crossed the southern border, that he may have been among the foreign terrorists we know have illegally entered the U.S. under Biden. According to Trump: “When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true.” He added: “The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!”

For its part, New Orleans, a city as besieged with corruption and inept leadership as it is with tourists, best beef up its French Quarter security measures before the upcoming Mardi Gras parties.

The FBI is asking anyone with information about Jabbar to contact them immediately.

In an unrelated incident, Master Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty Army Green Beret, committed suicide just before his EV Tesla truck exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day. Police initially claimed his intent was to cause mass casualties with that explosion, and made connections between Livelsberger and the NOLA assailant, including they had both previously trained at Fort Bragg, served a tour in Afghanistan, and rented their EV trucks using the same Turo car-sharing app.

But Vegas incident was something very different than the NOLA attack. The perpetrator suffered severe depression and service-related PTSD.

In what amounts to a suicide note left in an app to be found after his death, he wrote: “Fellow Service members, Veterans, and all Americans, TIME TO WAKE UP! We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves. This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives? Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took. We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist! But right now we are terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”

He added, “We are all diverse and DEI is a cancer,” he said. “Thankfully we rejected the DEI candidate and will have a real President instead of Weekend at Bernie’s.”

These are the tragic words of a severely disabled combat Veteran, who was deep in a lonely and desperate black hole and could see no way out.

Footnotes:

Leftmedia coverage of the New Year’s Day slaughter in New Orleans drew this headline from The Washington Post: “Truck Rams New Orleans crowd” Actually no, Islamist Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed the New Orleans crowd… Similarly in the case of the truck detonated in Las Vegas, MSM outlets like NBC parroted this headline: “Tesla Cybertruck bursts into flames outside Trump hotel in Las Vegas, killing one.” No, it was not some malfunction with the Cybertruck, the explosion was an intentional detonation by Matthew Livelsberger.

Hours after the Islamist attack in New Orleans, pro-Palestinian anti-Semite protesters, organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the People’s Forum, rallied in Times Square, chanting, “We will honor all our martyrs,” and “Globalize the intifada!.”

(Updated)