15 January, 2025 Hotel Attacks
11 Alive reports that on 1 January 2025, at approximately 3:15 am, an ISIS terrorist drove a rented Ford F-150 pickup truck down Bourbon Street in New Orlean’s French Quarter during New Year’s celebrations in a mass casualty attack.
The attacker accessed Bourbon Street via Canal Street, circumventing an SUV that police had parked there as a barrier. The Telegraph says he plowed through crowds of people along the way, killing 14 and wounding 35. After crashing his truck into a cherry picker several blocks down, ABC 25 WPBF and Fox 8 Live say he exited the vehicle and, wearing body armor, opened fire with an AR-10 .308 caliber rifle, injuring two New Orleans Police officers before they shot him dead. The police and the terrorist exchanged 30 rounds in the melee. Police found a Glock pistol in his car immediately afterward.
11 Alive says in the aftermath, the FBI discovered the attacker had planted IEDs on two street corners (2 pipe bombs with nails for shrapnel) and had explosive material in various places. The pipe bombs were contained in wheeled coolers, says The Telegraph. The locations of the explosives were:
All of these devices (or explosive material) were neutralized by the FBI’s explosive ordnance personnel.
Reporting from WDSU NBC says the attacker made his bombs out of RDX, which is typically a commercially made military-grade explosive.
RDX has a velocity of detonation (VOD) of 28,000+ feet per second and has “high shattering power,” which means it’s incredibly destructive. In this case, investigators say the RDX was homemade. Authorities say this is highly irregular, as homemade RDX has never been encountered in a terrorist investigation, so say open sources.
WDSU NBC also cites the FBI as saying the attacker did not use the right kind of detonators to set off his IEDs, which is why they did not explode. Other sources say it was the firefight with New Orleans police that prevented the attacker from detonating the bombs.
The Louisiana Illuminator says a fire was reported at the assailant’s Airbnb. The FBI said it was an attempt to destroy evidence of bomb-making.
WGNO ABC says the attacker was identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US Army veteran and Texas resident. Jabbar had pledged allegiance to ISIS and displayed the group’s flag on a pole on the bumper of his pickup truck during the attack. Officials stated he had joined ISIS in the summer of 2024. Social media posts revealed that Jabbar initially planned to target his family but shifted focus to a large-scale public attack to advance what he described as a “war between believers and disbelievers.”
NOLA.com reports the attacker reconnoitered the Bourbon Street area in October 2024 by bike while wearing Meta glasses, which recorded what the wearer saw. He traversed scores of streets and key locations:
New Orleans Police Capt. LeJon Roberts later said of this attack, “It wasn’t something we expected to account for,” says ABC News. Additionally, ABC News reports the City of New Orleans was in the process of replacing physical security street traffic barriers (bollards) all over the city. Bollards are thick steel posts that are anchored into the pavement to prevent vehicles from driving down streets. At the corner of Canal and Bourbon, the bollards were not in place, and the police had halfway blocked access to Bourbon Street with a parked SUV, which, again, the attacker simply drove around.
Addressing this, New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said their remedy to protect Bourbon Street failed. She specifically said, “We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it,” reports ABC News.
The New Orleans attack comes 10 days after a terrorist vehicle attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, that killed five and wounded 300. In this case, a moderate or former Muslim angry at Germany’s perceived lax immigration policy that allowed too many Islamist jihadists into the country, attacked a Christmas market to protest said policy – so say German authorities and multiple press outlets. Regardless of the reason, the vehicular assault tactic used here involved the driver circumventing vehicle barriers and police to access his kill zone, reports DW.
As an aside, Islamist jihadists and other terrorists such as Neo-Nazis and the mentally unbalanced have carried out more than 30 vehicular attacks in the US and globally. Here’s an abbreviated list:
Looking at the datapoints reported in the press and the FBI, and by conducting photographic analyses, Muir Analytics can confirm that four hotels were directly under threat during the Bourbon Street attack.
First, the spot where the attacker crashed his truck and opened fire on police was six feet in front of the Royal Sonesta New Orleans hotel’s sidewalk located at 300 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70130 (and opposite the bar, Prohibition). 11 Alive says a guest was awakened by the violence just outside his balcony. The Royal Sonesta evacuated guests via its parking garage during the chaos over concerns there were explosives in the assailant’s vehicle. 11 Alive says most guests were unaware of the attack until they spoke to a security guard at a nearby hotel. One guest said the hotel didn’t communicate with guests very well – just to evacuate the hotel immediately – and that there was no gathering point for the impacted guests.
Second, the IED at Bourbon and Toulouse was immediate to the three-star Four Points by Sheraton French Quarter hotel, located at 541 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70130. The Celestine, a boutique hotel, is 80 feet away.
Third, the IED at Bourbon and Orleans was immediate to the three-star Bourbon Orleans Hotel, located at 717 Orleans St, New Orleans, LA 70116.
Fourth, the five areas the terrorist reconnoitered involved 10 hotels, two of which were previously mentioned (see item 1, a and b).
In April 2024, says ABC News, FBI director Christopher Wray told the American Bar Association luncheon in Washington, DC that the threat from Islamist jihadism was real and pressing. He said groups like ISIS and al-Qaida had increased calls to attack the US and the West in general and to attack Jewish targets in particular. Director Wray said mass casualty attacks were their goal, and they would try to replicate the 22 March 2024 ISIS-K attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow (145 killed, 551 injured). He also said the 7 October 2024 Hamas terrorist massacre in Israel (1,180 killed, 3,400 wounded, 251 taken captive), Israel’s military response, and the greater Middle East war that followed “will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come.”
In tandem with the director’s warning, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told the Voice of America (VOA), “The U.S. continues to be in a heightened threat environment. DHS continues to work with our partners to evaluate the threat environment, provide updates to the American public, and protect our homeland.” They concluded their statement by saying, “We urge the public to stay vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activity to their local law enforcement.”
In another item of interest, says Fox News, hours after the Islamist jihadist attack in New Orleans, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the People’s Forum, held an anti-Israel march in New York City calling for intifada, which is a violent revolutionary movement targeting Israel, Jews, and all their international supporters, including the United States, the UK, and other countries. The terror group Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both Islamist jihadist groups, are planners, supporters, and executors of intifada campaigns. This New York march mimicked the pro-Hamas marches that happened in the wake of Hamas’ 7 October terrorist massacre. The protesters vowed to stage the same style march in New Orleans on 6 January 2025, but there are no press sources stating this happened.
There are seven takeaways. First, the terrorist’s attack tactics were only half effective. The effective part was the vehicle attack. It was highly efficient, achieving mass casualties and grabbing sensational headlines for ISIS.
The bombings, however, did not work, either for using the wrong/ineffective detonators or being forced to engage the police in a firefight. If the IEDs had worked, this would have been one of the worst terrorist attacks in US history (see more about this below).
Second, strategically, the attack was a failure. This mass casualty event came no closer to achieving ISIS’ goals of subjecting all non-Islamist jihadists to the rule of the caliphate than any US attack before it. On the other hand, this kind of attack does inspire other Islamist jihadists to carry on their ideological war. So, there is at least a partial strategic benefit for ISIS.
Third, the combination of using a vehicle with two IEDs represents a more complex attack concept than the Islamist jihadist norm in the US. Most previous US jihadi operations entailed a single means of attack – a shooting, a stabbing, a vehicle attack, or a bombing, but rarely a combination of these. It could be that future attacks in the US might also adopt multiple tactics. It should be noted that Islamist jihadists overseas frequently use multiple tactics in their operations.
Fourth, the fact that the attacker used homemade RDX, one of the most powerful commercial explosives in the world, is extremely troubling. It is likely that the recipe for RDX will be duplicated by terrorists domestically and overseas.
Depending on how many ounces or pounds of RDX and shrapnel were used (this data has not been released to the public yet) these two pipe bombs, had they detonated, likely would have killed everyone within 20 feet and wounded everyone within 50 feet. The streets were packed with pedestrians, so the total casualty rate could have been 100 or higher. And this estimate is conservative. Physical damages to the buildings within this range would have been heavy, with shattered windows, blown-in doors, and structural damage to load-bearing walls and columns/gallery posts.
Fifth, the terrorist’s reconnaissance demonstrates he knew exactly where to place his IEDs and drive his truck to cause mass casualties, which means he knew he was going to be killing people near or at hotels.
Sixth, the fact that the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) was not prepared for this kind of attack indicates a threat intelligence disconnect. FBI and DHS general threat warnings were not heeded. Additionally, as stated above, terrorists use vehicles to attack crowds on a regular basis. It is terrorism 101. And the fact that there had just been a vehicle attack at a crowded Christmas market in Germany should have reminded NOPD to prepare better defenses.
Additionally, Louisiana has the Louisiana State Analytical and Fusion Exchange (LA-SAFE), a joint intelligence cell comprised of the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, the Louisiana State Police, and the Governor’s Office. It is supposed to keep law enforcement aware of myriad threats, including terrorism.
It is not clear if LA-SAFE provided intelligence on vehicular assault tactics to NOPD or not. Whatever the reason for the intelligence disconnect, it should be rectified. It should also serve as a warning to other cities in the United States and elsewhere.
As an aside, the police who charged the terrorist and engaged him were thoroughly heroic.
Seventh, the pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas intifada march in New York City hours after the New Orleans attack was ill-timed and ill-considered. The march bizarrely appeared to provide a modicum of support to the New Orleans attack, as the pro-Hamas movement is rooted in Islamist jihadism. Neither did the protesters separate their cause from the New Orleans attack.
Looking ahead, the FBI and DHS terror warnings still stand – and they called it right. The US should learn from this and prepare for additional attacks. So should the international community. The threat of terrorists using RDX cannot be understated. It is real and should be expected, especially in tourist areas, event venues, and hotels.
Muir Analytics runs the world’s largest, most sophisticated hotel violence database – the SecureHotel Threat Portal – with over 3,600 hotel attacks (and growing). We can provide the hospitality, insurance, and law enforcement/government sectors with intelligence that facilitates full-spectrum risk reduction, which helps hotels protect guests, staff, buildings, brands, and revenues. Contact us for a consultation: 1-833-DATA-444.
“14 victims dead, 35 hurt as FBI puts call out for tips in terror attack investigation,” WDSU NBC, 3 January 2025.
“Bollards replaced ahead of deadly terror attack,” WDSU NBC, 3 January 2025.
“FBI/ATF Joint Investigative Update on Bourbon Street Attack,” FBI press release, 3 January 2025.
“Officers and bystanders may have been shot in gunfight at conclusion of terror attack, sources say,” Fox 8 Live, 3 January 2025.
“NYC protesters follow New Orleans attack by calling for ‘intifada revolution’ hours after rampage,” Fox News, 2 January 2025.
“Photos show terrorist walking through French Quarter an hour before New Orleans attack,” Louisiana Illuminator, 2 January 2025.
“The carnage of the New Orleans attack – captured on film by those who survived,” The Telegraph, 2 January 2025.
“‘It was unreal,’ Bourbon Street hotel guests describe aftermath of New Year’s terror attack,” WGNO ABC, 2 January 2025.
“Investigative Updates on the New Orleans Bourbon Street Attack,” FBI press release, 2 January 2025.
“Georgia fan describes evacuating hotel right where truck crashed on Bourbon Street in New Orleans attack,” 11 Alive.com, 1 January 2025.
“Bourbon Street attack leaves 15 dead, investigators on the hunt for suspects,” The Guardian, 1 January 2025.
“Bourbon Street attack leaves 15 dead, investigators on the hunt for suspects,” NOLA.com, 1 January 2025.
“Former FBI agent says investigators scrambling to find terror suspect’s accomplices,” ABC 25 WPBF, 1 January 2025.
“New Orleans police say they didn’t anticipate a vehicular attack would thwart their security measures,” ABC News, 1 January 2025.
“New Orleans terror attack suspect used ‘explosive compound’ never used in US, Europe attacks before,” WDSU NBC, 5 January 2025.
“Security questions over Christmas market attack in Magdeburg,” DW, 22 December 2024.
“Foreign terrorists targeting US ‘increasingly concerning’: FBI director,” ABC News, 9 April 2024.
“FBI fears ‘coordinated attack’ on US homeland,” Voice of America, 11 April 2024.
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