At least 15 people were killed and 35 injured when a driver rammed a pickup truck into a crowd during New Year’s celebrations on Bourbon Street in New Orleans early on Wednesday morning.
According to IRNA, citing American media outlets, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced in a statement that the attacker was Shamsud Din Jabbar a 42-year-old Texas man and Army veteran, who was killed in a shootout with police following the ramming.
CNN reported, citing two law enforcement sources, that the assailant was carrying a Daesh flag in the vehicle at the time of the attack and that the FBI is investigating his potential associations with terrorist organizations.
One of the sources said several explosive devices were also found in an ice storage box that was in the attacker's truck.
The FBI had previously said that it was investigating the incident as an act of terrorism.
The United States and its intelligence apparatuses have long been accused by several world countries and organizations of creating and funding Daesh terrorists with the help of some West Asian countries to pursue sinister plots against some regional states, including Iraq and Syria.
President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have both reacted to the truck attack and shooting in New Orleans.
"No form of violence is justified and we will not tolerate any attack on our people," Biden said in a statement on Wednesday night.
Trump linked the incident to illegal immigration and claimed: "As I said before, the criminals who come [to the United States] are much worse than the criminals in this country. This statement has become a reality."
Meanwhile, US police launched an investigation for a possible act of terrorism after a truck caught fire and exploded in front of Trump's hotel in Las Vegas, killing one person and injuring seven others.
Las Vegas police and fire officials in the state of Nevada announced on Wednesday local time that a person inside the car was killed without specifying his identity.
US officials said the cause of the explosion was not yet known, but ABC News reported, citing an unnamed official, that there were quantities of grenades similar to fireworks in the Tesla vehicle.
The incident is being investigated as a "possible act of terrorism," media reports said.
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