Army veterans, IT professional, two marriages: All about US terrorist attackers

Two terrorist attacks hit the world’s most powerful nation, the United States, in New Orleans, Texas and Las Vegas on the very first day of 2025. The attackers in both cases were former US Army personnel and reportedly served at the same base.

While Samsud-Din Bahar Jabbar drove an electric mini-truck into a crowd, killing 15 and injuring at least 35 others in New Orleans, Special Forces veteran Matthew Livelsberger blew himself up inside a Tesla Cybertruck in front of a gate at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

US investigators believe Jabbar wanted to kill as many people as possible and are looking into whether the two incidents are connected. Both incidents were treated as acts of terrorism.

Vehicles used in both incidents were rented from a platform called Turo. The company confirmed that they could not establish any criminal background, indicating that they could have been a security threat.

Both Jabbar and Livelsberger served in roles involving information technology and communications during their time in the armed forces. They served at the same military base, the Denver7 channel reported.

SAMSUD-DIN BAHAR JABBAR

In a now-deleted video, Jabbar said he was born and raised in the state of Texas.

US media quoted officials as reporting that Jabbar served in the US Army as a Human Resource Specialist and IT Specialist from 2007 to 2015 and then in the Army Reserve as an IT Specialist from 2015 to July 2020. He served in Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010 .

In a video, he introduced himself as a property management operator.

Jabbar attended Georgia State University from 2015 to 2017 and graduated with a BBA in Computer Information Systems. A profile on Microsoft Learn appears to show he took courses in computer engineering and application development between 2019 and 2023.

In November 2013, the US Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division posted a photo of him on its Facebook page, identifying Jabbar as an “information technology team leader”.

A spokesman said Jabbar enlisted in the US Navy under a different name but was discharged within a month.

An Islamic State (IS) flag, weapons and potential IEDs were recovered from his Ford electric truck after the attack. President Joe Biden told media persons that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informed him that Jabbar had posted a video before the attack that showed intentions to kill people.

The Islamic State group trying to radicalize Muslims by using online platforms to commit violent attacks on innocent civilians.

Although his profiles have been removed from LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube; a comment on GitHub offers some views on his religious leanings. In 2022, Jabbar requested administrators at Sunnah(.)com – an online platform dedicated to the words and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad – for access to its Application Programming Interface (API). “I plan to use the API to research hadith, contribute to the sunnah.com website, and explore the semantics of the Qur’an and Sunnah along with textual analysis,” he wrote on GitHub.

Jabbar was previously convicted of theft, driving with a suspended license and other offences.

He was reportedly married twice and filed for divorce in December 2020 from his wife Shaneen, with whom he had a child. A petition appears to show that a district court in Texas’ Ford Bent country barred Jabbar from seeing their son based on Shaneen’s petition.

MATTHEW LIVELSBERGER

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Livelsberger’s Cybertruck arrived in the city around 10 p.m. 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 1, drove for an hour and pulled into the valet area of ​​the Trump Hotel before the explosion occurred.

The suspect was killed inside the vehicle and seven people were injured in the explosion.

All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.

Not much is known about Livelsberger except for a LinkedIn profile that appears to be his. According to the LinkedIn profile, Livelsberger served in the US Army from 2011 to 2024. He served in the roles of communications specialist and operations specialist, focusing on technology integration. He graduated from Norwich University in Strategic Studies and Defense Analysis between 2016 and 2019.