Scouting the city, setting a fire and bringing in supplies: Here’s how the NOLA suspect planned the attack

By Celina Tebor, CNN

(CNN) — Nearly a week after Shamsud-din Jabbar rammed a pickup truck into a busy crowd celebrating New Year’s in New Orleans, killing 14, details of how he planned the attack are becoming clearer.

As investigators piece together his movements and motivations, it appears Jabbar – whom officials have said acted alone and was radicalized – was preparing the Bourbon Street attack for months. He visited the city multiple times in the months prior. He brought firearms and homemade explosive devices with him. He rented a home on Airbnb and attempted to burn it down in what officials believe was an attempt to hide criminal evidence.

Here’s what we know about how Jabbar planned his attack.

He scouted the city months before the attack

Jabbar visited New Orleans at least twice in the months prior to his attack, in October and November, FBI New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Lyonel Myrthil said at a Sunday news conference.

The attacker stayed at an Airbnb in New Orleans beginning October 30 for at least two days, Myrthil said.

During that trip, to scout the scene, Jabbar used Meta smart glasses, according to the FBI. The smart glasses can take photos and video, and they use artificial intelligence to answer user questions about their surroundings.

Jabbar wore the glasses to record video while bicycling through the French Quarter, Myrthil said, adding he wore them again during the New Year’s attack but didn’t activate them.

Jabbar also visited New Orleans on November 10, Myrthil said, “but we are still piecing together the details of that trip.”

He rented an Airbnb, and set fire to it

Jabbar rented an Airbnb in New Orleans’ St. Roch neighborhood about 1.5 miles away from the scene of the Bourbon Street attack, officials have said.

He set fire to the rental about 15 minutes after midnight on New Year’s Day, just before leaving to carry out the attack, officials said.

Officials were able to pinpoint the moment Jabbar set the house fire by using the home’s thermostat, said Joshua Jackson, the special agent in charge of the New Orleans field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Throughout Jabbar’s stay at the Airbnb, New Orleans had been experiencing cold winter temperatures, and heat was running in the home. But at 12:17 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Jackson said, the “thermostat converted over from heat to cool.”

“It changed roughly two minutes after he left, because the thermostat indicated that the temperature was rising inside the residence and it tried to keep up with the fire that was growing inside,” Jackson said.

Officials believe Jabbar was hoping to burn the entire house down, hiding the evidence of his crimes.

He used an open flame in the home’s linen closet area next to the washer and dryer, setting half gallons of gasoline in the hallway and pouring accelerant in different rooms throughout the house, according to Jackson.

But the fire ran out of oxygen and fuel, smothering itself before it was able to reach the accelerant in the other rooms.

Neighbors smelled smoke at 5:18 a.m., Jackson said, and contacted 911. The fire department responded to put out the “smoldering fire,” he said.

In the house, they found a type of silencer for a firearm, along with explosive material, Jackson said.

He constructed IEDs

After Jabbar departed the Airbnb shortly after midnight, he placed two improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in coolers on Bourbon Street. He placed one in a rolling cooler and the other in a bucket cooler and left them in the street.

Ultimately, neither of them detonated.

Officials believe Jabbar constructed the IEDs using commonly found explosives in the United States, Jackson said. But there was something somewhat “unique” about the IEDs Jabbar constructed – and it speaks to his inexperience, Jackson said.

The materials need a detonator to be set off, but because Jabbar didn’t have access to one, “he used an electric match in its place to try to set off the explosive material,” Jackson said. It didn’t work, and the devices never exploded.

“That is just indicative of his inexperience and lack of understanding how that material might be set off,” Jackson said.

He brought supplies, including coolers and firearms, with him

On December 31, before entering Louisiana, Jabbar visited a gun store in Texas, then another business where he bought one of the ice chests he would use later to hide the IEDs he constructed, the FBI’s Myrthil said.

A neighbor of Jabbar in Texas said he saw the man load a white truck in front of his home with “light stuff” on New Year’s Eve morning and that Jabbar said he was moving to Louisiana to start a new job.

Mumtaz Bashir, who lives with his wife and five children next door to Jabbar’s residence in North Houston, told reporters he believes the truck had been there for one night.

“I asked him if he needs hands for moving, help him out, as a neighbor, do you need any help for moving things around? He said, ‘I’m OK,’” Bashir said, describing the items he was loading as light and “hand-held.”

Bashir said Jabbar told him he had gotten an IT-related job in Louisiana.

Among the items recovered in the investigation is a .308 caliber semi-automatic rifle that Jabbar bought through a private, legal sale November 19 in Texas, Jackson said Sunday. The person who sold the rifle didn’t know Jabbar or that he was planning the attack, Jackson added.

Officials have also recovered a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, he said.

Investigators also located “privately-made silencers,” Jackson said, but he explained technicians are still trying to determine whether they can reduce sound enough to be officially classified as silencers.

One of these devices was on the rifle Jabbar used “in an attempt to muffle the sound of that rifle as he fired it,” Jackson said. The other was found inside the Airbnb along with the explosive material, he said.

He rented a 6,000-pound truck

The attacker rented an electric Ford F-150 pickup truck in Houston using the private vehicle rental website Turo and picked it up December 30.

FBI officials estimated he entered Louisiana on New Year’s Eve around 2:30 p.m.

The rented vehicle was seen in Gonzalez, Louisiana – about 55 miles northwest of New Orleans – around 9 p.m., Myrthil said.

Within an hour, home camera footage showed him unloading the white truck outside the Airbnb in New Orleans. He had driven from Houston to New Orleans by himself, and was the only person seen entering and leaving the Airbnb, officials said.

Shortly after the clock struck midnight, marking the first hours of 2025, Jabbar set fire to the house, drove to the French Quarter, and placed the coolers containing his homemade IEDs on the street.

Around 3:15 a.m., he drove up Canal Street, took a sharp right onto Bourbon Street, and rammed the 6,000-pound truck into a crowd celebrating the new year. Fourteen people were killed and dozens were injured.

CNN’s Ashley Killough, Ed Lavandera, Caroll Alvarado and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.

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