What distinguishes the 2 New Year’s Day attacks

Those of us celebrating the New Year at home – some perhaps choosing to watch another country’s earlier celebration on television, wistfully resigned to the fact our older bodies would not enable us to stay up to see the New York City Times Square ball drop – were shocked to awaken to reports the next morning about two deadly vehicular attacks. The first occurred in New Orleans; the second soon thereafter in Las Vegas. For those of us with military service, we were further shocked to learn both involved fellow veterans.

News about both attacks shared similarities but overlooked a key last-second difference distinguishing the two. Observable to both attackers in the last seconds of their lives, it was a telling sign as to why entirely different motivations were responsible.

The first attack, occurring early on New Year’s morning in New Orleans, was committed by Staff Sgt. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, who was no longer on active duty; a few hours later, Master Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger, 37 – still on active duty serving as a U.S. Army Green Beret who had taken leave from his base in Germany – committed the Las Vegas attack. Sadly, this veteran involvement triggered liberal press members, such as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, to ridiculously suggest the demographic about which to be most worried now concerning domestic terrorism is the veteran community.

Both veterans served at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and also in Afghanistan, with a likely overlap, although no evidence emerged they knew each other.

Both decided to use the timing of the New Year’s celebration to commit their attacks, most likely to leave a deeper footprint upon the American psyche by acting on the first day of 2025.

Both used the car-sharing platform Turo – an online app marketing privately owned vehicles for rent directly from their owners. The timing of the attacks as well as the mutual use of Turo initially caused investigators to examine whether there might be some connection between the two; however, further investigation proved none existed.

Both rented trucks for their attacks: Jabbar’s was a Ford F-150, undoubtedly selected for its 6,000 pound weight to help propel it through the heavy crowd of holiday celebrants he intended to target; meanwhile, Livelsberger rented a Tesla Cybertruck, which, although a slight bit heavier, may have been considered for an entirely different reason, as discussed below.

So what is the distinguishing difference between the attacks?

Jabbar’s motivation for the New Orleans attack is clearly supported by ample evidence. Seeing the jam-packed Bourbon Street crowd in the city’s French Quarter and physically driving around a police car serving as a barrier, he plowedforward with murderous intent. Two blocks from the first point of crowd impact, he crashed into a crane and began shooting at police. Returning fire, the police killed him but not before Jabbar claimed 14 lives and injured more than 30 others. For those killed, the last vision they probably had was of the Islamic extremist group ISIS flag flying from the bed of Jabbar’s truck.

A review of Jabbar’s Facebook postings indicated he joined ISIS before the summer. The newly converted Islamic radical’s initial plan was to attack family and friends; however, he then decided such would not convey the right message to the American public. He feared a family attack “would not focus on the war between the believers and disbelievers,” simply being dismissed as a domestic dispute. There is no doubt Jabbar wanted to leave this world as a terrorist responsible for killing as many non-Muslims as he could, dying in a blaze of Islamist glory.

Turning to Livelsberger’s Las Vegas attack, two intriguing points emerge.

First, he was an experienced Special Forces operative with 19 years service. Therefore, he clearly had knowledge about explosives and what they were capable, or not capable, of doing. He had packed his Cybertruck with firework mortars and gas cans, which caused the vehicle to explode and burst into flames just after he had pulled in front of the Trump International Hotel and shot himself. But as a video of the explosion shows, while the Cybertruck burst into flames, it remained fairly much intact, obviously attributable to the less-explosive nature of the materials he chose to use combined with the vehicle’s weight.

Second is what Livelsberger saw in the seconds before the explosion. He pulled behind a truck whose driver appears to have already entered the hotel, perhaps to register. But, unlike Jabbar – to whom hundreds of pedestrians were visible as targets – video shows there was no one visible in the front entrance to the Trump hotel. While seven people received injuries, all were minor, with virtually no damage to the hotel itself. This appeared to reinforce what investigators later discovered in writings Livelsberger left behind.

Although fearing he would be labeled a terrorist, Livelsberger wrote his action was only intended as a “wake up call” for the nation’s troubles with no intention to kill anyone else. There was no animosity expressed toward President Donald Trump or Elon Musk despite selecting the Trump hotel as the explosion site and using a Tesla Cybertruck as the delivery vehicle.

Evidence suggests Livelsberger, after several combat tours, was suffering from PTSD – contrary to Jabbar who suffered from hatred of non-Muslims, triggered by his conversion to Islamism. Livelsberger left a cellphone note explaining he had to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”

In a recent interview, Livelsberger’s wife emphasized her husband’s dedication to his country and love for his family. Looking for answers herself, she said, “I just want to make sure that people understand who my husband was. None of this makes sense. I hope at some point we will receive answers.”

What motivated both Jabbar and Livelsberger to act as they did on New Year’s morning was different as night and day. Jabbar saw a target-rich environment of victims; Livelsberger saw a target-poor one. Thus, the former was the violent act of a committed terrorist; the latter the unfortunate act of a veteran suffering from battle fatigue and the political division of the country for which he had made great personal sacrifices.

One loved America; one did not.