ATF agents gather new evidence from Bourbon Street terrorist's rental, identify bomb-making mistakes
Federal officials have released new details about the short-term rental fire that the Bourbon Street terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar lit shortly before he killed 14 people at a New Year's Day celebration in New Orleans.
In a statement released on Sunday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) said its National Response Team has completed its investigation of the Mandeville Street residence that Jabbar rented. They determined that Jabbar started a fire at the house at around 12:15 a.m., roughly four hours before the attack in the French Quarter.
"Jabbar set the fire using an open flame (matches) just before he left," the ATF explained. "The fire was started in the linen closet next to the washer and dryer. This is a closed-off area of the hallway that leads to other rooms of the residence."
The assailant also placed accelerants in other rooms, which the ATF said were meant to "destroy evidence of his crimes." But the agency noted that the fire eventually died on its own.
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"We can confirm the fire was still growing as the Nest thermostat switched over from heating mode to cooling mode as the temperature continued to rise in the residence," the ATF said.
"Eventually the fire extinguished itself as it ran out of oxygen and fuel in this closed off portion of the residence and never connected to the accelerants placed in the other rooms."
At around 5:18 a.m. – an hour after the Bourbon Street attack and after Jabbar died – a neighbor alerted 911 to the smell of smoke near the residence.
"New Orleans Fire responded and put the smoldering fire out and observed evidence in the residence so they alerted law enforcement," the statement added. "ATF and FBI secured the location at this point."
The FBI previously said the smoldering of the fire allowed agents to recover evidence from the rental home, including "pre-cursors for bomb-making material and a privately made device suspected of being a silencer for a rifle."
In its Sunday announcement, the ATF said it discovered that Jabbar bought one of the rifles used in the attack from an individual in Texas on Nov. 19. The seller told the ATF that he did not personally know Jabbar and was unaware of his radical beliefs.
At the rental home, agents also found evidence of RDX, or cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, which is an explosive. But officials noted that Jabbar made a crucial misstep by selecting explosive material designed to be set off by a detonator, and that using an electric match to set the explosives off instead was a sign of inexperience.
"Jabbar used explosive material better suited for a detonator, but he didn’t have access to one, so he used an electric match to set the explosives off," the agency concluded. "Jabbar's lack of experience and crude nature of putting the device together is the reason why he used the wrong device to set the explosives off."
Fox News Digital's Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.