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

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 administration commented Iraqi officers had received requests from the U S to help in the research of the attack in the predawn hours of New Years Day in the famed French Quarter of New Orleans Iraqi judicial leaders commented A U S Army veteran driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Islamic State group sped down Bourbon Street running over particular casualties and ramming others officers disclosed at the time The Federal Bureau of Inquiry identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar a U S citizen from Texas and announced it was working to determine any promising 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 executives disclosed He then opened fire on police officers and Bourbon Street crowds and was shot and killed by the officers agents mentioned The FBI explained shortly after the attack that it was probing the crime as a terrorist act and did not believe the driver acted alone Investigators unveiled guns and what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the car along with other devices elsewhere in the French Quarter Iraqi authorities disclosed 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 authorities 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 authorities mentioned 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 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 district one of Iraq s oldest religious minorities