The D Brief: New Orleans attack; US, Israeli strikes in Yemen; Africa’s ‘new era of war’; What drove Afghanistan lies?; And a bit more.
Army veteran behind New Orleans truck attack
Investigators say they’ve uncovered ISIS-related videos posted online just hours before a Houston-based Army veteran drove into a crowd of people early Wednesday in New Orleans, and then opened fire with a weapon—killing 15 and wounding nearly three dozen others on Bourbon Street before he was shot and killed by police. An Islamic State group flag was later found in the truck used for the attack.
Authorities said afterward they do not believe he acted alone, prompting a wider investigation by federal officials, according to the Associated Press, reporting Thursday.
POTUS: “The FBI is taking the lead in the investigation and is investigating this incident as an act of terrorism,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Wednesday evening. “In the meantime, my heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday,” he added.
The driver was a U.S. citizen from Texas, and an Army staff sergeant with eight years on active duty, which concluded in early 2015. His name was Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, and he had deployed once to Afghanistan from 2009 to early 2010. He was later in the Army Reserves for five years ending in 2020, according to an Army spokesperson. Over his career, he had served as both a Human Resource Specialist (42A) and Information Technology (IT) Specialist (25B).
He’d also recently held a six-figure job at the accounting firm Deloitte, according to the New York Times. One problem for investigators: “Jabbar did not appear to have a history of violence,” the Times writes. And “Criminal records in Texas show charges for minor infractions two decades ago — misdemeanor theft in 2002, driving with an invalid license in 2005.”
Post first, ask questions later: “President-elect Trump falsely suggested on social media that the man who drove a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans was an immigrant,” the New York Times reported Wednesday. As noted above, the suspect was in fact a U.S.-born citizen and an Army veteran.
The MAGA echo chamber: It wasn’t just the president-elect propagating the falsehood about an alleged migrant responsible for the truck attack in New Orleans. Trump’s son, Don Jr., also spread the lie on his social media account; so did far-right Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and a high-profile employee at Newsmax.
Developing: A U.S. soldier was driving the Cybertruck that exploded in Las Vegas on Wednesday, killing himself and wounding at least seven others in front of the Trump International Hotel, according to ABC7 News in Denver.
The Army confirms: “Master Sgt. Matthew Alan Livelsberger enlisted as an 18X and served in the active duty Army from January 2006 to March 2011. Livelsberger then joined the National Guard from March 2011 to July 2012, followed by the Army Reserve from July 2012 to December 2012. He entered the active duty Army in December 2012 and was a U.S. Army Special Operations Soldier. Additionally, U.S. Army Special Operations Command can confirm Livelsberger was assigned to the command and on approved leave at the time of his death. USASOC is in full cooperation with federal and state law enforcement agencies, but as a matter of policy, will not comment on ongoing investigations.”
“Firework mortars and camp fuel canisters were found stuffed into the back” of the truck, AP reported. More from New York Times and NBC News.
Related reading:
- “FBI finds 150 homemade bombs at Virginia home in one of the largest such seizures, prosecutors say,” AP reported Wednesday;
- And a “US soldier [was] charged with selling stolen confidential phone records,” Reuters reported Wednesday; cybersecurity researcher Brian Krebs has more in his exclusive profile of the soldier and his apparent cyber shenanigans, here.
Welcome to our first D Brief of 2025, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston and Meghann Myers. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1959, the Soviets launched Luna 1, the first spacecraft to approach the Moon and to orbit the Sun.
Ukraine developments
U.S. announces $5.9B in aid for Ukraine. That’s $2.5 billion in security assistance and $3.4 billion in additional budgetary assistance, officials said on Monday. (Reuters, DOD)
New: Patriots to Romania. The Romanian government awarded Raytheon a $946 million contract to supply additional Patriot air defense “production hardware, software and services” to its military, the Pentagon announced last week.
Background: The former Soviet bloc and current NATO member first bought several of the systems back in 2017; officials in Bucharest sent one of those systems to Ukraine this past October, which reportedly leaves Romania with just one operating Patriot in its possession today.
Hot item: Patriot systems have proven effective in Ukraine’s defense against Russian missile and drone attacks, and that success has attracted attention from neighboring countries looking to bolster defenses against possible future Russian attacks.
Related reading:
- “Ukraine Slows Firing of Missiles Into Russia as Trump Prepares to Take Office, NYT reported on Dec. 27;
- See also, “How Suicide Drones Transformed the Front Lines in Ukraine,” which is a NYT deep dive reported by C.J. Chivers from Kharkiv and other locations; many of its themes will be familiar to Defense One readers;
- ICYMI: “Ukraine says it shot down Russian helicopter using a naval drone,” AP reported Tuesday;
- And: “The Russian billionaires whose chemical factories fuel Russia’s war machine,” via Reuters reporting Monday;
- “Starlink to roll out direct-to-cell services in Ukraine” late this year, Reuters reported this week, adding, “Direct-to-cell devices are connected to satellites equipped with modems that function like a cellphone tower, beaming phone signals from space directly to smartphones.”
Commentary: Why did so many American generals lie about the war in Afghanistan and why did they do so for so long? John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, asks these questions in an op-ed published Thursday in the New York Times. In his words, “Why did so many senior officials tell Congress and the public, year after year, that success was on the horizon when they knew otherwise?” Sopko writes ahead of his agency’s final report on Afghanistan, expected sometime later this year.
His advice: Make all IGs independent. “If we are going to fix a broken system that puts bureaucrats and special interests ahead of taxpayers, the first step is to make all federal inspectors general as fully independent as my office has been,” Sopko says. “We were able to do our work only because Congress granted us the freedom to operate independently. Inspectors general for the military, State Department and USAID, however, do not enjoy such autonomy,” he says.
But a bigger problem concerns “incentives in our government that impede truth-telling,” says Sopko. If the U.S. cannot stop or reform those incentives and the processes feeding them, “we will keep pursuing projects both at home and overseas that do not work, rewarding those who rationalize failure while reporting success, and burning untold billions of dollars. American taxpayers deserve better,” he says. Read the rest, here (gift link).
Corollary: America’s failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have “contributed to Ukraine becoming a contested domestic political issue in the United States (or non-issue),” argues Franz-Stefan Gady, formerly of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, writing Thursday on social media.
“Many who advocated for staying in Afghanistan and invading Iraq are now fervent supporters of continuous military support to Ukraine,” he writes, and posits, “This association is negatively impacting public perception regarding US support for Ukraine…the Ukrainian cause is often discredited in the eyes of many American voters due to this connection.”
Global terrorism
The American and Israeli militaries carried out airstrikes on Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen over the holiday break. The Pentagon says U.S. forces in the region attacked Houthi targets in the capital city of Sana’a and other locations along Yemen’s coasts Monday and Tuesday.
U.S. Navy ships and aircraft are believed to have hit “a Houthi command and control facility and advanced conventional weapon production and storage facilities” for the production of both missiles and drones, Central Command officials said in a statement. “These facilities were used in Houthi operations, such as attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” CENTCOM said.
Also destroyed: “a Houthi coastal radar site and seven cruise missiles and one-way attack UAVs over the Red Sea,” CENTCOM added.
Last Thursday, Israeli airstrikes hit the airport in Sana’a as the World Health Organization’s director-general was boarding a flight, AP reported last week. As a result, “The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge—just a few meters from where we were—and the runway were damaged,” the WHO chief said on social media.
Other Israeli targets included the port cities of Hodeida, Al-Salif and Ras Qantib.
Background: During the weekend before Christmas, “16 people were wounded when a Houthi missile hit a playground in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, while other missiles and drones [were] shot down,” AP reported.
By the way: Israel’s military is still working to kill Hamas terrorists around Gaza, including a man named Hassam Shahwan, whom the Israeli Defense Forces say was the chief of Internal Security Forces for Hamas. He was “eliminated by the [Israeli Air Force] in an intelligence-based strike in the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis,” the IDF announced Thursday.
Across the Bab el-Mandeb strait, Somali security forces fought off a “large and sophisticated attack” by Islamic State militants Tuesday in the northeastern region of Puntland, Reuters reported. The attack involved at least nine suicide bombers and several other militants, according to a Puntland parliamentarian and military officer on location when the violence occurred. An unspecified number of soldiers were reportedly wounded in the attack.
And lastly, in case you missed it: “Africa Has Entered a New Era of War,” the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday citing data from Uppsala University and Norway’s Peace Research Institute Oslo.
“Africa is now experiencing more conflicts than at any point since at least 1946,” the Journal reports. That includes “28 state-based conflicts across 16 of the continent’s 54 countries, more than in any other region in the world and double the count just a decade and a half ago.”
What’s going on? “Many of the most-affected states were left vulnerable after failing to settle on a strong mode of governance after independence—whether as functioning democracies or established authoritarian systems—or were destabilized during moments of once-in-a-generation political transitions,” some experts told the Journal.
Why it matters: “The consequences go beyond the immediate loss of life,” one expert said. Some of those consequences include “Stalled development, delayed elections and a broader sense of impunity” across the region. More, here.