NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — The man who rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers in New Orleans had suspected bomb-making materials at his home and reserved the vehicle used in the deadly attack more than six weeks earlier, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Friday. Federal authorities searching the home of Shamsud-Din Jabbar in Houston found a workbench in the garage and hazardous materials believed to have been used to make explosive devices, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the search. The officials were not authorized to speak about the ongoing inquiry and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The FBI investigation also revealed that Jabbar purchased a cooler in Vidor, Texas, hours before the attack and gun oil from a store in Sulphur, Louisiana, the officials said. Authorities also determined Jabbar booked his rental of the pickup truck on Nov. 14, suggesting he may have been plotting the attack for more than six weeks. Authorities say 14 people were killed and some 30 were injured in the attack early Wednesday by Jabbar, a former Army soldier who posted several videos on his Facebook hours before the attack previewing the violence he would unleash and proclaiming his support for the Islamic State militant group. The coroner’s office listed the cause of death for all 14 victims as “blunt force injuries.” Jabbar, 42, was fatally shot in a firefight with police at the scene of the deadly crash on Bourbon Street, famous worldwide for its festive vibes in New Orleans' historic French Quarter. Authorities found crude bombs that had been planted in the neighborhood in an apparent attempt to cause more carnage. Two improvised explosive devices left in coolers several blocks apart were rendered safe at the scene, officials said. Other devices were determined to be nonfunctional. Investigators recovered from Jabbar's rental truck a transmitter intended to trigger the two bombs, the FBI said in a statement Friday. It also said authorities found bomb-making materials at the New Orleans home Jabbar rented prior to the attack. Jabbar tried to burn the house down by setting a small fire in a hallway and placing accelerants to help spread it, the FBI said. The flames burned out before firefighters arrived. Authorities on Friday were still investigating Jabbar's motives and how he carried out the attack. They say he exited the crashed truck wearing a ballistic vest and helmet and fired at police, wounding at least two officers before he was fatally shot by officers returning fire. New Orleans police declined to say Friday how many shots were fired by Jabbar and police or whether any bystanders may have been hit, citing the active investigation. Stella Cziment, who heads the city's civilian-run Office of the Independent Police Monitor, said investigators are working to account for “every single bullet that was fired” and whether any of them struck bystanders. Bourbon Street was solemn Friday. A day after the crime scene reopened to the public, locals and tourists stopped to pay respects to victims of the attack as the sound of bucket drums echoed. People shed tears while gathering at a growing memorial. Some left flowers and candles while others dropped to their knees to say a quick prayer. “New Orleans is about having a good time, you know, just trying to live your best life," said Tony Lightfoot, who works in Baton Rouge and was visiting New Orleans with his son. He said the attacker “just decided to disrupt all of that.” Thirteen people remained hospitalized. Eight people were in intensive care at University Medical Center New Orleans, spokesperson Carolina Giepert said. The White House said President Joe Biden would travel to New Orleans on Monday to “grieve with the families and community members impacted by the tragic attack.” Police used multiple vehicles and barricades on Friday to block traffic at Bourbon and Canal streets as crowds of pedestrians swelled. Other law enforcement agencies helped city officers provide extra security, said Reese Harper, a spokesperson for the New Orleans Police Department. The first parade of the Carnival season leading up to Mardi Gras was scheduled to take place Monday. New Orleans will also host the Super Bowl on Feb. 9. “This enhanced safety effort will continue daily, not just during large events,” Harper said in a statement. In a previous effort to protect the French Quarter, the city had installed steel columns known as bollards to restrict vehicle access to Bourbon Street. The posts retracted to allow for deliveries to bars and restaurants, until — gummed up by Mardi Gras beads, beer and other detritus — they stopped working reliably. So, when New Year’s Eve arrived, the bollards were gone. They were being replaced ahead of the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno took steps toward launching an investigation of the attack. In a memo to another council member obtained by AP, Moreno said she was initiating the creation of a local and state legislative committee “dedicated to reviewing the incident and its implications.” “This committee will play a crucial role in assessing our current policies, enhancing security measures, and ensuring that we are adequately prepared to respond to any future threats,” Moreno wrote. The FBI concluded Jabbar was not aided by anyone else in the attack, which killed an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a single mother, a father of two and a former Princeton University football star, among others. Thirteen of the 14 victims have been identified by the New Orleans coroner’s office, with the youngest listed as 18 and the oldest 63. Most of the victims were in their 20s. One victim was a British citizen. It was the deadliest IS-inspired assault on U.S. soil in years, laying bare what federal officials have warned is a resurgent international terrorism threat.

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Villagers in southern Cameroon say armed men crossed the border from Nigeria and killed at least seven government troops and displaced civilians from about 15 villages. Civilians say they believe the attackers are members of a militant group. Villagers in the Akwaya district on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria’s Taraba state say several hundred armed men crossed the Moon River two times this week and launched deadly attacks on their villages. The Moon River lies to the south on Cameroon's border with Nigeria. Villagers say the water level has dropped significantly this dry season, making it easy to cross by foot. The villagers say the first attack was on Thursday, when armed men suspected to be ethnic Fulani from Nigeria entered their villages and started shooting indiscriminately in the air, torching houses and threatening to kill civilians. Cameroon's military says that it fought back and that the attackers retreated after several fighters were killed. Agwa Linus Tarnonge, traditional ruler of Bakinjaw village in Akwaya district, said villagers were surprised that the men returned on Friday, more heavily armed than they were on Thursday. "In the cause of gun fire exchanges, some of those armed Fulani suffered casualties, and then the remaining ones retreated and came back with an overwhelming population [number of fighters], and with more sophisticated rifles,” Tarnonge told VOA by phone from Akwaya. “They attacked our [Cameroon] military contingent that is lodged at the chief's palace in Bakinjaw, and killed five military and two gendarmes." The Cameroon military said it lost five troops during the confrontation. Villagers say two government troops sustained injuries and died while being rushed to a hospital for treatment. Many civilians were injured, and it is too early to determine if some villagers died because of the difficult access to Akwaya, the Cameroon military says. Aka Martin Tyoga, a lawmaker and member of Cameroon's National Assembly from Akwaya, said this week's attacks are the latest in a series of what he called attempts by Nigerian militant groups to seize that area of Cameroon. “We have asked the people to move away from the border area to the center, where we have the military that has been there since,” Tyoga said. “We are pleading that the government should send more forces [military] because these people [armed men] come en masse; they came in 300. Their mode of operating is like Boko Haram. They enter the community and just start killing people, burning down houses." No group has claimed responsibility, but Cameroonian government officials and Akwaya residents believe a Nigerian militant group wants to occupy the area. Cameroonian officials said troops have been deployed to the border with Nigeria around Akwaya for a search-and-rescue operation, but they have not said how many have been deployed. The Cameroonian government says it is working in collaboration with Nigerian authorities to stop the border attacks but gave no details. VOA could not independently verify if Cameroon has contacted Nigerian authorities to either investigate the origin of the armed group or collaborate with forces of the neighboring state to fight the suspected militants. Nigeria has been attempting to stop the proliferation of militant groups in its territory since 2009, when fighting between Nigerian government troops and Boko Haram militants degenerated into an armed conflict and spread to Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Several bombings and deadly attacks have taken place in Nigeria’s Taraba state since 2022 that were claimed by Islamic State West Africa Province or ISWAP. In 2021, Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger said ISWAP was emerging as the terrorist group taking over from Boko Haram, which was weakened by the death of its leader, Aboubakar Shekau, in May of that year.

BAMAKO, MALI — Suspected Islamic militants killed more than 20 people in a string of attacks on villages in central Mali's insurgency-hit Mopti region on Friday, two local sources said.  The unidentified assailants struck during the day and into the evening, ransacking and burning six villages in the Bandiagara area, the sources said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.  One of the sources said the assailants had come in large numbers on motorcycles and attacked a village, where they killed everyone and destroyed everything.  There was no immediate comment from the ruling military junta.  The West African nation is battling armed groups with links to al-Qaida and Islamic State, which took root in its arid north following a Tuareg separatist rebellion in 2012.  Militants have since spread to other countries in the Sahel region south of the Sahara, seizing territory, killing thousands of people, and uprooting millions in the process. 

ISLAMABAD — The recent assassination of a Taliban minister in Afghanistan by a local Islamic State offshoot has raised concerns about the terrorist network's expansion in the region, while signifying an escalation of the terror group’s conflict with the country’s de facto Taliban leaders. Taliban Minister of Refugees and Repartition Khalil-Ur-Rahman Haqqani was killed, along with several staff members, in a suicide bombing while he was exiting his office in the Afghan capital on Wednesday. Haqqani, 58, is the highest-profile target of Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, since the Taliban swept back to power in August 2021. The group has so far killed at least eight high-ranking Taliban officials and prominent figures in suicide bombings. The victims include the governors of the northern Afghan provinces of Balkh and Badakhshan. Taliban authorities have repeatedly claimed that their security operations have effectively diminished IS-K in Afghanistan, urging critics to provide evidence or stop making unfounded allegations about the terrorist group’s presence within the Afghan population. Islamic State social media channels again derided the Taliban’s claims following Haqqani’s assassination, asserting the latest deadly attack was a testament to the group’s presence in the country and its capacity to strike at will. The United States has refrained from immediately commenting on the deadly attack against the Taliban minister. “The only thing I would say is that we recognize — and we said so at the time — that there was still an ISIS threat inside Afghanistan,” National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told a White House news conference on Thursday, using an acronym for the terrorist group. “And clearly, they have set their sights on the Taliban.” Afghanistan’s growing terror threat? The assassination and the terrorism threat emanating from Afghanistan prominently figured in a meeting the United Nations Security Council held Thursday to discuss the situation in the crisis-ridden country. “Terrorist forces in Afghanistan such as Daesh, al-Qaida and ETIM/TIP still pose a major threat to international peace and security,” Fu Cong, the Chinese ambassador to the U.N., told the gathering. Fu used the Arabic acronym Daesh for the IS-K and referenced the anti-China group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). “We call on the Afghan interim government to take counterterrorism measures to eradicate the breeding ground for terrorism and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a gathering place for terrorist organizations again,” the Chinese ambassador said. The Russian representative, Vassily Nebenzia, addressed the meeting and highlighted Moscow’s concerns regarding Islamic State activities in Afghanistan. “We are particularly concerned about the ongoing security risks emanating from the persistent terrorist activity of the ISIL Afghan wing,” Nebenzia said, using another acronym for the regional IS offshoot. The Russian envoy acknowledged the Taliban’s efforts to combat the terrorist threat but characterized them as insufficient. “We see that the fighters are enhancing their presence in the country, and they are deliberately escalating the situation, thereby recruiting new fighters, including foreign terrorist fighters, and carrying out new terrorist attacks targeting representatives of religious and ethnic minorities, including women and children,” he said. Nebenzia went on to assert that Islamic State militants are actively attempting to establish themselves as an alternative force, thereby jeopardizing stability in Afghanistan and the broader region. Transnational terror groups On Thursday, the U.S. State Department’s annual country report on terrorism also underscored the threat transnational groups pose to regional stability from Afghanistan. “Despite commitments by the Taliban that Afghan soil would be used neither to support terrorist groups nor to launch attacks against the United States or its allies, terrorist groups such as the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (the TTP) continued to take advantage of poor socioeconomic conditions and uneven security procedures that make for a more-permissive operating environment,” the report stated. “The Taliban arrested some notable ISIS-K operatives in 2023 and viewed ISIS-K as the primary threat in Afghanistan while appearing to apply less pressure against al-Qaida and TTP,” the report noted. TTP, a globally designated terrorist group, has waged attacks against Pakistan and has intensified its cross-border raids since the Taliban seized power in Kabul. The IS-K began its extremist operations in the region in early 2015 and mainly consisted of defectors from members of the then-insurgent Afghan Taliban and the TTP. Despite both being ardent advocates of the strict interpretation of Islamic law known as Sharia, the Sunni-based Afghan Taliban and IS-K are notorious for their intense rivalry. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for multiple attacks it carried out beyond the Afghan borders in 2024. The targets included a memorial service in Shiite Iran, a Moscow concert hall and a church in Turkey, collectively killing nearly 250 people. Pakistan, while briefing the Security Council Thursday, highlighted growing TTP attacks, saying the violence is being orchestrated from Afghan hideouts. “The TTP — with 6,000 fighters — is the largest listed terrorist organization operating in Afghanistan. With safe havens close to our border, it poses a direct and daily threat to Pakistan’s security,” Usman Iqbal Jadoon, the Pakistani representative at the U.N., told the meeting Thursday. “We have evidence of its [the TTP’s] collaboration with other terrorist groups … to disrupt Pakistan’s economic cooperation with China. Given its long association with al-Qaida, the TTP could emerge as al-Qaida’s arm with a regional and global terrorist agenda,” Jadoon asserted without elaborating further. Taliban leaders deny allegations Afghanistan is being used by foreign militants, including the TTP, to threaten other countries, including Pakistan.

WHO’S ETHNICALLY CLEANSING WHOM ?! pic.twitter.com/6iH2SZw4Ah — Eretz Israel (@EretzIsrael) December 11, 2024