It is the deadliest attack by an ISIS supporter on the West in several years. But still, almost a week later, the group also known as Islamic State has yet to issue its trademark claim of responsibility for the horrific New Year’s violence in New Orleans.
There may be a mundane, technical reason for a delay. Or there could be another explanation: that the group genuinely had no foreknowledge of the attack, and is reluctant to make a false claim.
But many analysts have suggested a lack of foreknowledge has not stopped the group from trying to associate itself with attacks in the past. An extreme example is its brief attempt to claim the October 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas festival as its own operation.
So, could there be another rationale behind the lack of a claim for the attack, which killed 14 people and injured dozens? It’s the kind of atrocity that many observers have warned ISIS has wanted to perpetrate on the United States as part of its revival.
“There’s no question it was IS inspired,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project. “So why would they not grab it gratefully? It seems an unmissable opportunity to claim a direct hit on the ‘biggest Satan.’”
Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College London, said: “It would be very unusual for ISIS not to claim this attack, given that the attacker openly declared his allegiance to the group and even put an ISIS flag on his truck.”
The group’s hierarchy, traditionally based in Syria and Iraq, is perhaps reeling from persistent US airstrikes, recently bolstered by the French, both Neumann and Fitton-Brown said. This could have disrupted the usual mechanism and leadership who would issue and approve such a message.
Just as the Assad regime fell in Syria, the Biden administration announced that it had hit 75 ISIS targets on December 8, using B-52 bombers, F-15 jets, and A-10 warplanes. Eleven days later, US Central Command said a precision strike had killed an ISIS leader in Syria, Abu Yusif, aka Mahmud, in Deir Ezzor province.
The militant group has often weathered such attacks in the past and used outlier operatives to continue its propaganda.
Neumann said while ISIS affiliates in Afghanistan and Africa were growing, the group remained “on the defensive” in Iraq and Syria. “That’s where many believe the group’s media operation, including its ‘news agency’ Amaq is situated,” he said.
However, Neumann added this possible disruption had not stopped ISIS from publishing its so-called weekly “newspaper” al-Naba, so it was curious the group could not simply publish a claim on social media about the New Orleans atrocity. He said he expected to see at least a reference to the attack in al-Naba, published Thursdays. (The New Orleans attack was in the early hours of Wednesday, so just prior to the last publication).
Another possibility is that ISIS could be waiting longer to issue the claim, at a time when it might highlight the attack in the news cycle again and gain greater attention from the incoming Trump administration, which takes office on January 20.
Separately, the New Orleans attacker’s personal history and circumstances might have influenced ISIS’s behavior. Shamsud-Din Jabar did pledge allegiance to ISIS prior to the summer, according to the FBI, in theory providing plenty of time for contact with the group.
Unusually for an ISIS supporter, however, he was a veteran who had served in the US military in Afghanistan for about a year, which might have left the terror group squeamish about a close association.