The US will not allow a ‘climate of fear’ to prevail after the terrorist attack in New Orleans

Secretary of the Department of Public Security Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday that the United States will not allow a “spirit of fear” to prevail after a terrorist attack in New Orleans on Wednesday killed 14 people and injured dozens of others.

The suspect in the attack, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was an Army veteran and a US citizen in Texas who was killed by police in the early hours of the New Year after driving a truck into a crowd of holiday haters.

“This appears to be one person, an American citizen, driven to violence by the ideas of foreign terrorists, specifically the ideas of ISIS,” Maorkas said on “Your World.” “This is a phenomenon, a domestic violence phenomenon that we’ve seen grow and develop over the last decade.”

Authorities say an ISIS flag was found on a Ford Jabbar truck used to carjack people in the French Quarter.

Christopher Raia, deputy director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said in a press conference Thursday that Jabbar posted videos online as he drove from Houston to New Orleans announcing his support for ISIS.

“This investigation has been going on for a little over 24 hours, and there is currently no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack other than Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar,” said Raia.

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Multi-agency police work at the scene on Bourbon Street after at least 10 people were killed when a suspected driver drove into a crowd in the early hours of New Year’s Day on January 1, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Michael DeMocker/Getty Images)

Mayorkas said ISIS’s goal is for Americans to “live in fear” but American democracy and its way of life “must prevail.”

“We will continue to enjoy and prosper in our democratic way of life and not allow the state of fear to prevail and therefore the mission of ISIS succeed. We will not allow that to happen,” told Fox News anchor Sandra Smith.

Smith pressed Mayorkas on the number of terrorist groups meeting on the southern border under the Biden administration and why more was not done earlier to curb the number of people entering the country illegally.

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A pro-ISIS agency has called on Muslims in Russia, Europe and the US to attack on New Year’s Eve. (AP Photos/Getty Images)

Maorkas said the men and women of American law enforcement work every day to “ensure the safety and security of the American people” and investigate people who pose a threat to public safety and national security.

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“Regardless of the nature of the threat, those who pose a threat to the American people are our highest priority in enforcing the law as our laws provide. And we enforce and enforce those laws every day,” he added.