Shamsud-Din Jabbar: Suspect in New Orleans attack identified as a Texan and had an ISIS flag with him

The man killed in a shootout with the police after ramming into dozens of revelers in New Orleans early on New Year’s Day was Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a native of Texas who had served with the US Army, officials confirmed on Wednesday as they sought to determine a motivation for the attack.

The FBI said it was examining an Islamic State group flag that was found in the truck used in the attack and that it believed Jabbar “was not solely responsible.” Several improvised explosive devices were found and disposed of, officials said.

Jabbar, who officials confirmed was honorably discharged from the Army, had converted to Islam at some point, according to Dwayne Marsh, who is married to Jabbar’s ex-wife Nakedra Charrlle. Jabbar and Charrlle had two daughters, ages 15 and 20, Marsh said, adding that “the girls are a mess” after the attack.

In recent months, he said, Jabbar had been acting erratically, “being all crazy, cutting his hair” after converting, Marsh said. Marsh and his wife then stopped allowing the daughters to spend time with Jabbar, he said.

In a YouTube video from 2020 that appears to have been posted by Jabbar, he spoke positively about his skills in real estate. He said he had been born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, and had served in the U.S. military.

“I’ve been here all my life, with the exception of traveling for the military,” he said. Court records from his first divorce, in 2012, list his employment as active duty with the U.S. Army and his residence at the time as Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.

In the video, Jabbar said that in his 10 years in the armed forces, he had worked as a human resources specialist and an information technology specialist.

Criminal records in Texas show that Jabbar had previously been charged with minor infractions — once in 2002 for a misdemeanor theft and once in 2005 for driving with an invalid license.

The vehicle used in the New Orleans attack, an electric Ford pickup, was registered to a Houston man who made vehicles available for rent on a peer-to-peer car sharing website.

That man, who asked that his name not be made public, said that he and his family had been preparing for an outing to the zoo on Wednesday morning when he saw the news of the attack and recognised his truck as the one involved.

The man said the FBI called him and he explained that he had not been driving the vehicle but had rented it out. He said he had been asked by the federal agents not to discuss the matter publicly.

Records show that Jabbar was married twice, with his first marriage, to Charrlle, ended in 2012. In the midst of a second divorce in January 2022, Jabbar wrote an email to his wife’s lawyer in which he described financial problems. “I cannot afford the house payment,” he wrote.

“It is past due in excess of $27,000 and in danger of foreclosure if we delay settling the divorce,” he wrote.

He said in the email that the business corporation he had formed, a real estate company, had lost more than $28,000 in the previous year and that he had taken on $16,000 in credit card debt in order to pay for lawyers and for “establishing a second residence.”

He suggested in the email that he and his wife sell the house and divide the proceeds evenly.

But in a court document from August 2022, he said he worked at the accounting firm Deloitte and made about $120,000 a year.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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