Iraq’s court announced on Sunday that Iraqi authorities have arrested a suspected Islamic State member for inciting a truck-ramming attack in January that left 14 dead in the US city of New Orleans. Iraq’s war against ISIS continues, with the group severely diminished but still exerting a nagging threat through sleeper cells and insurgent strikes, particularly in rural and mountainous areas such as the Hamrin mountains.
Early on New Year’s Day, a US army veteran who the FBI claimed had sworn allegiance to IS crashed a pickup truck into partygoers in the bustling French Quarter, known for its nightlife, sending the city in the southern state of Louisiana into a frenzy. The suspect was slain by police during a gunfight.
Ten days before to the incident in New Orleans, a similar car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, left five people dead and over 200 injured.
In one instance, a guy was detained by police after they said he seemed mentally ill.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was phoned by President Joe Biden “to offer full federal support following the horrific news,” according to the White House.
“There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities,”
Biden stated in a statement.
Jeff Landry, the governor of Louisiana, called the incident a “horrific act of violence.” When family members flocked to the University Medical Center to visit their loved ones, city officials declared a gathering place. While authorities have not yet disclosed the attacker’s country or name, President Donald Trump has connected the incident to illegal immigration.
“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in the country… it turned out to be true,”
Trump said in a social media post. The Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq stated that an IS member “was arrested for inciting the January 2025 truck attack in the United States” following Iraq’s request to cooperate with the probe from US.
Using the Arabic abbreviation for IS, it also stated that the suspect is “a member of the external operations office of the Daesh terrorist organization.” It stated that the suspect would face trial in Iraq under the anti-terrorism statute.
IS cells have continued to operate and occasionally assault the army and police despite the nation declaring in 2017 that the terrorist organization had been defeated on its own. Nearly half of IS’s senior commanders in Iraq have been killed as a result of government-led counterterrorism operations, according to a new UN study. After seizing control of significant portions of Syria and Iraq in 2014, IS proclaimed a “caliphate” and began an era of crimes.
