New Orleans attacker had transmitter to set off explosives, FBI says

New Orleans: The man who plowed a pickup truck down a crowded New Orleans street early New Year’s Day, killing 14 people, had planned to use a transmitter to detonate two explosives he had placed near the site of the attack, the FBI said Friday.

The attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who authorities have said was inspired by the Islamic State extremist group, had placed both of the explosive devices on Bourbon Street, the famous stretch of bars and revelry that Jabbar turned into a scene of devastation Wednesday morning.

Neither of the devices went off, and the transmitter and two guns were recovered from the truck driven by Jabbar, who was killed by police moments after his attack. It was not clear whether the devices had failed to detonate because Jabbar had not activated the transmitter or because it did not work.

Jabbar, 42, had rented the truck and had driven it from Houston to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. Authorities also disclosed Friday that he had set fire to a short-term rental house where he had apparently spent time about a 15-minute drive from the site of the attack.

The FBI said investigators had found bomb-making materials at the house, on Mandeville Street. The agency said in a statement that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had determined that Jabbar was the only person who could have set the fire and that he had used accelerants “in his effort to destroy it and other evidence of his crime.”

Investigators said Jabbar had set the fire in a hallway and had then left the house. By the time firefighters arrived at the scene, it had largely gone out on its own and was only smoldering. There was no visible damage to the outside of the house. Authorities recovered a homemade device from the house that they believe was to be used as a suppressor for a rifle.

Michael Adasko, 45, who lives next door to the rental property, said in an interview that his security camera had captured a man who looked like Jabbar “unloading materials” at 10:02 p.m. New Year’s Eve from a truck like the white Ford F-150 that was used in the attack.

When Adasko returned home before 12:30 a.m., the truck was gone, he said. Authorities have said that Jabbar carried out the attack on Bourbon Street around 3:15 am.

Richie Williams, 63, said that when he woke up at his home on Mandeville Street around 5:30 am New Year’s Day, he saw several firetrucks on his street and smoke coming from a house down the block. It smelled like burning rubber, he said, but there were no flames. About two hours later, he said, law enforcement officials arrived and told Williams that he had to leave.

The property where Jabbar stayed is a yellow, one-story house owned by a real estate agent, according to property records. The agent did not respond to repeated requests for comment over several days, and a woman who identified herself as his wife said Thursday evening that the couple was not speaking with reporters.

Several residents of Mandeville Street said that resentment had been building over short-term rentals in the neighborhood, where some homes have housed the same families for generations. Anna Koenig, who lives across the street, said that when police had called her to ask if she saw anything unusual at the rental house, she had said no, because people come and go from the house all the time.

“If something was going on at any of these other places,” she said, gesturing toward a row of family houses across the street, “I would have noticed, because those are my neighbors — that I know.”