Feds say New Orleans attacker acted alone, seek links to Cybertruck explosion in Vegas

While authorities have ruled out additional suspects in an attack in New Orleans, they are continuing to probe any possible links between the incident and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.

The attacks happened within hours of each other on New Year’s Day.

Federal officials said the probe is still in the early stages and no conclusions should be reached at this time, but both suspects had backgrounds in the U.S. military and served at the same base in North Carolina. The two men also rented the vehicles used in the attacks through Turo, a platform where people can rent cars directly from vehicle owners.

Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said during a press briefing Thursday that at this point there’s “no definitive link” between the two incidents. But officials are continuing to review evidence in both attacks.

“It’s an interesting thing during these kinds of investigations that if these turned out to be simply similarities — very strange similarities to have — so we’re not prepared to rule in or rule out anything at this point,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said.

In New Orleans, the feds looked into whether the man who plowed into revelers on Bourbon Street had accomplices, but officials said they found none and that the attacker acted alone.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, drove a rented pickup truck bearing a flag of the Islamic State from Houston to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. Early on New Year’s Day, officials say he drove the truck onto a sidewalk, going around a police car that was positioned to block vehicular traffic, authorities said.

The attack killed 14 and injured 35 others, officials said. Police killed Jabbar after he got out of the truck and opened fire on officers, authorities said.

Investigators found two explosive devices in coolers in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Surveillance footage showed Jabbar placing the items in the area several hours before the attack, according to the FBI.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that the devices appeared to be homemade pipe bombs with nails. The devices did not go off.

A barrier is seen on Royal Street after a vehicle drove into New Year’s revelers in New Orleans’ French Quarter on Wednesday.

(George Walker IV / Associated Press)

Law enforcement officials told The Times that Jabbar was wearing body armor. Investigators recovered a handgun and an AR-style rifle after the shootout, a law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.

Raia said Thursday that the FBI discovered five videos Jabbar posted online hours before the attack, in which he stated he had joined Islamic State before this summer. In one video, Jabbar explained that 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 said.

“This was an act of terrorism,” Raia said. “It was premeditated and an evil act.”

In a video on YouTube, Jabbar said he was born in Beaumont, Texas, and worked in human resources and information technology while in the Army. He described himself as a property manager and real estate agent.

Officials are combing through data on three phones and two laptops linked to Jabbar to determine whether there are any other potential leads.

The FBI is also probing the explosion of fuel canisters and firework mortars packed into the bed of a Cybertruck outside President-elect Donald Trump’s property near the iconic Las Vegas Strip that killed the driver and left seven bystanders with minor injuries, officials said.

McMahill said authorities believe the driver was 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger, but he cautioned that the person’s body was burned beyond recognition so officials have not been able to positively identify him. However, authorities found military identification, credit cards and a passport with Livelsberger’s name inside the vehicle, McMahill said at a news conference.

The driver sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head before the car exploded. Two semiautomatic firearms, purchased by Livelsberger on Dec. 30, were also found inside the vehicle, McMahill said.

The Cybertruck involved in the Las Vegas incident and the Ford pickup truck used in the New Orleans attack were both rented through Turo, a platform where people can rent cars directly from vehicle owners.

A company spokesman said Turo is working with law enforcement, but that it does not believe that either renter “had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.”

Livelsberger rented the Cybertruck in Denver on Dec. 28 and charged the vehicle at Tesla charging stations in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, McMahill said.

A traffic camera recorded the Cybertruck arriving in Las Vegas at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. The truck traveled up and down the Strip for about an hour and spent some time in the parking lot of a business near Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard before pulling into the covered driveway outside the Trump International Hotel. The truck exploded about 17 seconds later, near the glass doors to the hotel’s entrance, McMahill said.

The vehicle was caught on surveillance camera driving past the valet section of the hotel an hour prior to the incident, authorities said.

Investigators have not yet figured out how the fireworks and gas and camping fuel canisters in the back of the vehicle were ignited. Federal officials are still trying to determine the motive in the blast.

Image from video provided by law enforcement shows items in the bed of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

(Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal via Associated Press)

Livelsberger, who was from the Colorado Springs area, was a sergeant in the Army’s elite Green Berets special forces unit, according to an Army statement and his LinkedIn profile. He spent most of his time at Ft. Carson in Colorado and in Germany where he was serving with the 10th Special Forces Group. He was on leave from Germany at the time of the explosion, McMahill said.

The blast did not cause significant damage to the body of the Cybertruck nor did it shatter the glass doors leading to the hotel lobby. Most of the material inside the vehicle was fuel to help cause a greater explosion, according to Kenny Cooper, a special agent in charge for the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience,” Cooper said.

Both Livelsberger and Jabbar previously served at the Army’s Ft. Bragg, now known as Ft. Liberty, in North Carolina, but it is not clear whether they served at the same time or in the same unit. Both men also served in Afghanistan in 2009, though officials say they don’t have any evidence they were in the same location in the country or in the same unit, McMahill said.

Livelsberger entered active duty in the Army in December 2012 and was a candidate to be a Green Beret after serving in the Army Reserve and the National Guard, according to an Army spokesperson. His LinkedIn profile indicates that he became a remote and autonomous systems manager two months ago.

On Facebook, Livelsberger posted in drone hobby groups showing off his projects. He asked fellow enthusiasts about which parts to use as he put together his own custom machines.

He also criticized the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021, calling it on social media the “biggest foreign-policy failure in the history of the United States.”

The FBI, the ATF and the Colorado Springs Police Department served a search warrant at a home in Colorado Springs in connection with the explosion in Las Vegas Thursday morning. Federal authorities declined to provide additional details.

Investigators are looking into whether the driver deliberately targeted one of Trump’s properties using a Tesla vehicle. Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, is a close advisor to the president-elect.

“There’s investigative activity taking place literally around the globe,” Las Vegas FBI Special Agent in Charge Spencer Evans said. “At this particular time … we have to focus on what we know and what we don’t know. It’s not lost on us that it’s in front of the Trump building that it’s a Tesla vehicle, but we don’t have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it’s because of this particular ideology or any of the reasoning behind it.”

Times staff writer Terry Castleman contributed to this report