At least 10 people have been killed and 35 others injured after a driver, Shamsu Din Jabbar, crashed his pickup truck into a crowd at high speed in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
Officials in the United States city described the car-ramming as a deliberate attack.
The incident occurred around 3:15am (09:15 GMT) near the intersection of Canal and Bourbon Streets, a busy pedestrian thoroughfare in the heart of New Orleans’s historic French Quarter.
The New Orleans Police Department explained in a statement that the car struck multiple pedestrians before crashing.
Police Chief, Anne Kirkpatrick, said the driver shot two police officers, but they were in “stable” condition.
The incident came as late-night New Year’s celebrations continued on Bourbon Street, a popular destination for partygoers, packed with bars and venues for music and dancing.
It also happened hours before the kickoff of the Allstate Sugar Bowl, a college football quarterfinal held in the city’s Caesars Superdome, with thousands expected to be in attendance.
Investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) later reported that they had discovered what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the suspect’s vehicle, though it was unclear at the time whether it was viable. The FBI is taking the lead in the probe.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the incident as a “terrorist attack”.
The FBI also said in a statement, “We are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism.”
But initially, law enforcement appeared wary of designating the event as a “terrorist” attack. Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, had said earlier in the day: “This is not a terrorist event.”
While the FBI is now treating the incident as an act of terrorism, the bureau has yet to specify what evidence it has to make that legal determination.
She noted that there had been a heightened police presence in New Orleans for the New Year’s festivities, as well as to provide security for the Sugar Bowl football game.
But some of the barriers that ordinarily would have been in place to prevent a car ramming had been removed at the time of Wednesday’s attack, according to local media reports.
The city had been in the process of replacing the barriers in advance of the Super Bowl LIX game, the pinnacle of the American football season, set to be held in New Orleans in February.
