The New Orleans attacker was inspired by ISIS. How much of a threat does the group pose to the US?
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Despite the New Orleans attack, experts don’t see an elevated threat from ISIS — instead, it’s a steady threat that never left, Richard Hall writes. The New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans that killed at least 14 people and injured 30 more has reignited fears about the terror threat posed by ISIS in the U.S. following years of relative quiet.
![[Emergency services attend the scene after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans' Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025.]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/02/16/New_Orleans_Car_Into_Crowd_96993.jpg)
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran, has been named by authorities as the suspect. He carried an ISIS flag on the vehicle used to mow down pedestrians. Addressing the nation following the attack, President Joe Biden said Jabbar posted videos to social media “indicating he was inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill.”.
![[Mourners pay tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting during a memorial service in San Diego, California on June 12, 2016.]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/02/20/GettyImages-539767876.jpg)
But how much of a threat does the extremist Islamist militant group pose to Americans today?. Nonetheless, experts say ISIS has remained a steady threat even as its territory has dwindled. “I think this attack shows that they have a level of resiliency,” Seamus Hughes, an expert on terrorism and homegrown extremism at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, University of Omaha, Nebraska, tells The Independent.
![[A general view shows Mosul's Old City, on January 8, 2018, six months after Iraqi forces seized the country's second city from Islamic State group jihadists]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/02/20/GettyImages-902997134.jpg)
“No one should argue that it is the same level of influence and power that it was when it controlled a vast territory and ran its own government, but it still has the ability to inspire, direct, and encourage attacks throughout Europe and the U.S.,” he adds.
The FBI has warned for some years that it is consistently conducting more than 1,000 active ISIS investigations in all 50 states, but the scale of support for the group in the US and internationally tends to ebb and flow with its success on the battlefield.
