HOUSTON — The terrorist who killed at the least 10 individuals when plowed his truck down crowded Bourbon Avenue in New Orleans was an American-born army veteran who was residing in a run-down trailer park the place he saved sheep and goats within the yard — simply blocks away from the native mosque.
Authorities say Shamsud Din Jabbar, 42, from Houston, had an ISIS flag strapped to the rented Ford F-150 Lightning EV truck he used to hold out an act of premeditated terror on New Yr’s Day.
In a YouTube video he posted in 2020 for his actual property enterprise, a clean-cut Jabbar described himself as a dependable, reliable native Texan who spent 10 years within the army, which taught him “the meaning of great service.”
However later, Jabbar lived in a squalid trailer park on the outskirts of Houston that’s dwelling to principally Muslim immigrants.
Geese, chickens, and sheep roamed freely in Jabbar’s yard when The Submit visited hours after the assault.
One neighbor instructed The Submit she spoke solely Urdu, Pakistan’s nationwide language.
The neighborhood can also be inside strolling distance of the native mosque, Masjid Bilal — the place nobody answered the phone on Wednesday.
Regulation enforcement sources instructed The Submit that they discovered movies Jabbar made the place he referenced the Quran — Islam’s holy textual content.
By mid-afternoon the feds swooped in — kicking The Submit and different journalists out of the realm and cordoning it off.
His neighbors appeared to know little about him.
Francois Venegas described Jabbar as a “simple person” who saved to himself, although they might sometimes trade phrases on the road.
“[He was] pretty quiet…Just walking, [he would say] ‘hello,’ ‘hola,’ and that was it,” Venegas mentioned.
Jabbar had been arrested twice: As soon as in Katy, Texas, for theft in 2002, court docket data present, and once more three years later for driving with out a legitimate license, the New York Occasions reported.
He had additionally been divorced twice, and the failed marriages apparently left him in monetary break.
Jabbar’s first spouse sued him for baby help funds in 2012, court docket data present.
Amid his second divorce in 2022, he mentioned he had racked up greater than $16,000 in bank card debt paying court docket charges and bills for a second dwelling, in keeping with an electronic mail to his ex-wife’s lawyer considered by the Occasions.
“I cannot afford the house payment,” he wrote.
He added that his actual property enterprise suffered greater than $28,000 in losses the earlier 12 months.
His first spouse, Nakedra Jabbar, has since remarried, and she or he and her new husband have been cooperating with investigators, her husband’s father, Nelson Marsh Sr., instructed the New York Submit.
