The man who drove a pick-up truck into people celebrating the New Year in New Orleans is believed to have acted alone, according to the FBI – as new information was revealed about the two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) recovered near the scene.

There is also “no definitive link” between the attack and the Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas, said FBI deputy assistant director Christopher Raia.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s rented truck rammed into people in New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street, killing 14 and injuring dozens, in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

New Orleans attack – follow latest

Mr Raia called the attack “premeditated” and an “evil” act of terrorism, and said Jabbar was “100% inspired by ISIS”, also known as Islamic State.

He also said the FBI was reviewing two laptops and three phones linked to Jabbar, as well as two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) recovered near the scene of the attack.

The two “functional” devices contained nails and were made of galvanized pipe with end caps, and taped inside two coolers, according to Sky News’ US partner NBC News, citing the FBI and two senior US law enforcement officials. Both devices had receivers for remote firing, they said.

It was not immediately clear if Jabbar tried to detonate the devices, or if they malfunctioned, the officials said.

Five videos posted in hours before attack

The 42-year-old army veteran, who was born in the US and lived in Texas, was shot dead after he crashed and opened fire on police.

The FBI said he posted five videos on his Facebook account between 1.29am and 3.02am – with the attack taking place around 3.15am.

In one, he said he planned to harm family and friends but was concerned headlines would not focus on the “war between the believers and disbelievers”.

He also joined Islamic State “before this summer” and provided a will, Mr Raia told reporters.

A black ISIS flag was attached to the back of the white Ford truck used in the attack and was pictured lying next to the vehicle.

Read more:
‘Quiet and smart’ veteran – what we know about suspect
Teenage girl and Princeton grad among first victims named

Authorities said Jabbar drove around police barricades on to the footpath, with witnesses describing carnage as the truck sped down the street, knocking people over.

“You just heard this squeal and the rev of the engine and this huge loud impact and then the people screaming,” said one witness, Kimberly Strickland from Alabama.

Barriers protecting pedestrians had been removed for repairs before the attack, city officials said, and were due to be replaced with a new bollard design.

While the works were taking place, they had been replaced with white gate barriers which were managed by the New Orleans Police Department, according to the City Of New Orleans.

Among the victims named so far are an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a single mother with a four-year-old son, and a graduate of Princeton University.

What we know about Shamsud-Din Jabbar

The FBI also said CCTV showed Jabbar placing the IEDs near the scene. However, none of them went off.

The investigation is expected to look at any support or inspiration he may have drawn from IS or any of its affiliate groups.

The bureau has received more than 400 tips from members of the public and more than 1,000 agents and officers have been working on the case.

Jabbar held human resources and IT roles in the army from 2007 until 2015, and was stationed in Afghanistan for a year. He was then in the reserves until 2020.

Read more:
‘The last conversation we had – he told me he loved me’
Witnesses say carnage after attack ‘like a movie’

A friend described him as “very quiet, very reserved, smart, articulate” and said he had been raised a Christian before converting to Islam a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the Sugar Bowl college American football game went ahead on Thursday afternoon, with a moment of silence beforehand, after being postponed on Wednesday following the attack. The city will also host the Super Bowl next month.

An Islamic State flag attached to the pickup truck used to kill and injure dozens of people in New Orleans is a grim reminder of the persistent threat posed by Islamist extremism.

Investigators are rushing to understand why Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, the US citizen and army veteran who is suspected of carrying out the atrocity in the early hours of New Year’s Day, appears to have been inspired by the terrorist group, also known as ISIS.

A key question will be establishing whether he was self-radicalised by the terrorist group’s extreme ideology – or whether there was any kind of direction or enabling from actual IS members or other radicalised individuals.

The FBI initially said they did not believe the man, who was killed in a shootout with police after ploughing his rental truck into his victims in one of the United States’ worst acts of terrorism, had acted alone.

Latest updates on New Orleans attack

But President Joe Biden later said that the “situation is very fluid”, and with the investigation continuing, “no one should jump to conclusions”.

He also revealed that the suspect had posted videos on social media mere hours before the attack indicating that he “was inspired by ISIS”.

Whatever caused Jabbar to commit such carnage, his murderous rampage and the use of the IS flag underline the danger still posed by extremist Islamist ideology five years after the physical dismantling of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Read more:
What we know about suspect
Teenage girl and graduate of Princeton University among first victims named
New Year’s carnage haunts New Orleans – but ‘Big Easy’ has suffered before

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly described how his administration “defeated ISIS” during his first term as president.

It is true that the US-led coalition against Islamic State helped Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces recapture swathes of territory that had fallen under IS control.

The US military also carried out a raid in October 2019 that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the then head of Islamic State.

But his extremist ideology that drove tens of thousands of fighters to pledge their allegiance to Islamic State – carrying out horrific acts of murder, torture and kidnap of anyone who did not follow their warped interpretation of Sunni Islam – has never gone away.

Many of the group’s fighters have been captured and are held in camps and detention centres in northern Syria, but their fate is looking increasingly uncertain following the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad at the hands of another Sunni Islamist militant group called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was once aligned with Islamic State.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the HTS leader turned de facto ruler of Syria, has sought to distance his group from their past links with Islamist extremism.

But HTS is still considered a terrorist entity by the UK, the US and other western powers.

Experts fear that events in Syria may inspire sympathisers and supporters of Islamic State across the world to carry out new attacks.

It is far too soon to link specific events like the toppling of the Assad regime to the bloodshed on the streets of New Orleans.

But security officials, including the head of MI5, have long been warning about a resurgent threat from Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

In a speech in October, Ken McCallum spelt out the terrorist trend that concerns him most: “The worsening threat from al-Qaeda and in particular from Islamic State”.

A Holocaust survivor and the oldest living Olympic medal winner has died at the age of 103.

Agnes Keleti died on Thursday morning in Budapest after she was hospitalised with pneumonia on Christmas Day, the Hungarian state news agency reported.

Regarded as one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes, Ms Keleti won 10 medals in gymnastics, including five golds, for Hungary at the 1952 Helsinki Games and the 1956 Melbourne Games.

When celebrating her 100th birthday, she said: “These 100 years felt to me like 60. I live well. And I love life. It’s great that I’m still healthy.”

Born Agnes Klein in 1921 in Budapest, her career was interrupted by the Second World War and the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics.

Ms Keleti was forced off her gymnastics team in 1941 due to her Jewish ancestry.

She later went into hiding in the Hungarian countryside, where she survived the Holocaust by assuming a false identity and working as a maid.

Her mother and sister survived the war with the help of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, but her father and other relatives died at Auschwitz concentration camp.

More than half a million Hungarian Jews were murdered in Nazi death camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators during the war.

Read more from Sky News:
What we know about New Orleans truck attack suspect
Two children among 12 killed in shootout after bar fight

After the war, Ms Keleti was unable to compete in the 1948 London Olympics due to an ankle injury.

She eventually made her Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games at the age of 31, winning a gold medal in the floor exercise as well as a silver and two bronzes.

In 1956, she became the most successful athlete at the Melbourne Olympics, winning four gold and two silver medals.

While she was becoming the oldest gold medallist in gymnastics history at age 35 in Melbourne, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary following an unsuccessful anti-Soviet uprising.

Ms Keleti remained in Australia and sought political asylum.

She then immigrated to Israel the following year and went on to train and coach the Israeli Olympic gymnastics team until the 1990s.