Iraq detains Islamic State suspect accused of helping to incite New Orleans truck-ramming attack

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and JEFF MARTIN An official with the Islamic State group has been detained in Iraq suspected of being involved with inciting the pickup truck-ramming attack in New Orleans that killed more than a dozen people celebrating the start of Iraqi leadership explained Related Articles Liberals won the polling in Canada Here s what to know and what comes next What is a conclave What to know about the secretive process to elect the next pope Conclave to elect a new pope will start on May as cardinals get to know one another Russia declares a -hour ceasefire in Ukraine for next week to mark Triumph Day in World War II Pope Francis funeral Watch coverage from Vatican City Iraqi functionaries had received requests from the U S to help in the examination of the attack in the predawn hours of New Years Day in the famed French Quarter of New Orleans Iraqi judicial authorities noted A U S Army veteran driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Islamic State group sped down Bourbon Street running over various casualties and ramming others functionaries announced at the time The Federal Bureau of Probe identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar a U S citizen from Texas and disclosed it was working to determine any probable associations with terrorist organizations After driving his pickup truck onto a sidewalk around a police car blocking an entrance to Bourbon Street and striking the New Year s revelers he crashed into construction equipment officials disclosed He then opened fire on police officers and Bourbon Street crowds and was shot and killed by the officers executives commented Investigators located guns and what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the conveyance along with other devices elsewhere in the French Quarter Iraqi officers explained that Baghdad s Al-Karkh Investigative Court specified the suspect who was later detained and turned out to be a member of the Islamic State group s foreign operations office The executives who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations did not release the name of the suspect only saying that he is an Iraqi citizen The officers disclosed the man will be put on trial in accordance with the country s anti-terrorism law adding that Iraq is committed to international cooperation in fighting terrorism The FBI s inspection into the New Year s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans remains working and ongoing the FBI mentioned in a declaration Tuesday While we continue to work with our law enforcement partners both in the U S and internationally based on the information to date we continue to believe that Shamsud Din-Jabbar acted alone in carrying out the attack on Bourbon Street the agency declared saying that anyone with information is encouraged to contact them Despite its defeat in Iraq in and in Syria two years later Islamic State still has sleeper cells that carry out deadly attack in both countries as well as other parts of the world The group once attracted tens of thousands of fighters and supporters from around the world to come to Syria and Iraq and at its peak ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom and was notorious for its brutality It beheaded civilians slaughtered captured Iraqi soldiers in a short period and enslaved and raped thousands of women from the Yazidi region one of Iraq s oldest religious minorities Abdul-Zahra revealed from Baghdad Martin communicated from Atlanta