New Orleans raises specter of persistent ISIS threat

An ISIS flag allegedly found in the truck that Shamsud-Din Jabbar used in the lethal car-ramming attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day highlights the persistent danger posed by the terrorist group, which continues to churn out online propaganda to try to foment violence around the world, experts and U.S. officials say.

The Islamic State’s exact role in the attack remains unclear. But the discovery of the flag, as well as two possible improvised explosive devices in the area, prompted federal authorities to investigate the suspect’s possible links with ISIS, law enforcement officials said. President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening that the FBI told him Jabbar had published videos “indicating that he was inspired by ISIS.” 

The attack in New Orleans, which killed at least 15 people, follows repeated warnings from U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials about an elevated terrorist threat over the past year fueled by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s response.

Authorities have cited ISIS’ branch in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-K, as a particular danger.

The arrest in October of an Afghan accused of plotting an Election Day attack in Oklahoma City, as well as recent plots in France, Sweden and elsewhere, highlight the growing threat posed by ISIS-K, officials and counterterrorism experts say. 

“The New Orleans terrorist attack simply confirms what many in the counterterrorism community have been saying for the past year, which is that ISIS remains a stubborn and persistent threat and one which simply isn’t going to fade away,” said Colin Clarke of the Soufan Group, a consultancy that focuses on global security issues.

“While we don’t know the extent of ISIS involvement yet, this was either inspired by the group or directed from abroad,” Clarke said.

Aaron Zelin, an expert on jihadist groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank, said the use of a car to target pedestrians is a typical “low-tech” tactic ISIS extremists have used in previous attacks in the West over the past several years, along with stabbing assaults. 

Car ramming doesn’t require access to explosives, specific weapons or a sophisticated plan, Zelin noted.

If the New Orleans case is confirmed as an ISIS-backed or -inspired attack, it would be the first lethal assault by someone connected to or acting in the name of the group on U.S. soil since 2017, when an ISIS supporter drove a truck along a bike path in New York City, killing eight people. 

In November 2016, authorities said, ISIS propaganda inspired a Somali refugee to drive a car into a crowd at Ohio State University and then stab students trying to help those hit by his car. Police shot and killed the attacker. From 2014 to fall 2018, there were 16 vehicular attacks in the United States and Europe “conducted by jihadists,” including but not limited to people inspired by or connected with ISIS, according to a report by the think tank New America. 

ISIS, a global Sunni Islamist group that once controlled a vast stretch of territory in Iraq and Syria, is weaker than it was at its height 10 years ago. Western intelligence agencies have generally managed to counter the threat posed by the group, Zelin told NBC News. “Overall, most of the attack plots have been broken up” in the West, he said.

“But it only takes one occasion for something to happen, and unfortunately, that then leads people to view the threat differently,” he said.

In early August, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies helped Austria defeat an ISIS plot to kill hundreds of people at Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna, Deputy CIA Director David Cohen said at the time. The shows were called off.  

Robust use of online propaganda

Over the past decade, ISIS’ online propaganda has provided guidance to its followers about how to conduct attacks by stabbing people or ramming cars into crowds, Zelin said. 

“None of this is new. They just continue to throw it out every single day. And from their perspective, the hope is that it sticks with somebody,” he said.

With branches in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, ISIS has invested heavily in propaganda across multiple languages, often aiming its message at Muslims abroad, experts say.

The group has counseled patience in its efforts to target the United States and other Western countries since it lost its self-declared “caliphate” territory in Iraq and Syria in 2019, said Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, a nongovernmental organization that aims to disrupt extremists’ use of the internet. 

Still, Webber said, it “has remained highly active online, and a robust official and supporting network of propaganda outlets have flourished across platforms.” 

ISIS also has “ramped up” its operations in recent months to carry out or guide attacks on its perceived enemies, Webber said.

The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria last month could open a potential strategic opportunity for ISIS as it seeks to exploit a political and security vacuum, experts said.

“With ISIS gaining ground in Syria, there is a high likelihood that the group will ramp up its propaganda in an effort to inspire followers, fanboys and extremists around the globe,” said Clarke of the Soufan Group. “ISIS is looking to seize the momentum heading into 2025 and will likely increase its operational tempo, including a focus on attacks in the West.”

At its peak in 2015, ISIS controlled a vast swath of territory in Syria and Iraq, which it used to stage attacks in the region and abroad.

A U.S.-led military campaign, which relied on American air power, Kurdish ground forces and Iraqi government troops, inflicted major losses on ISIS and eventually rolled back the group.

In its annual assessment of global threats last year, the U.S. intelligence community said, “ISIS will remain a centralized global organization even as it has been forced to rely on regional branches.”

It added that the group will try “to conduct and inspire global attacks against the West and Western interests.”