Two suspected New Year’s Day attacks, both allegedly carried out by former U.S. military personnel, raise questions about how people with access to classified information and cutting-edge weaponry can be drawn into extremist beliefs. Questions have arisen.
Early Wednesday morning, Shamsuddin Jabbar, a Texas resident, allegedly ran into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people. He is a former Army sergeant and was deployed to Afghanistan.
Hours later, a Tesla Cybertruck burst into flames outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. It was a terrorist plot in which an active-duty army sergeant was suspected of involvement. Matthew Libersberger is accused of carrying out the attack while on approved leave, leading to his own death. He was a member of the elite Green Berets.
From 1990 to 2022, 170 members of the U.S. military planned 144 unique, deadly terrorist attacks in the United States. This is 25% of all individuals who planned extremist crimes involving mass death during this period, according to a study by the National Coalition on Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.
Early Wednesday morning, Texas resident Shamsuddin Jabbar allegedly plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people (FBI).
New Orleans attack: FBI says no other suspects involved, investigation continues
Questions posed by Fox News Digital to the Pentagon about its plans to identify and eradicate extremists went unanswered.
Here’s a look back at other military extremists who have carried out attacks against the U.S. mainland in the 21st century.
2009: Army psychiatrist Nidal Hassan kills 13 people
In 2009, retired Army Major Nidal Hassan went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, killing 13 people. The Islamic extremist and former Army psychiatrist has been vocal about the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Terry Lee, a retired colonel who served with Hassan, told Fox News that Army Maj. Hassan makes “outlandish” statements such as “Muslims should stand up and fight the invaders,” referring to the U.S. military. He said he was deaf.
Hassan reportedly shouted “Allah Akbar!” He opened fire, killing 13 people and injuring 30, making it the deadliest mass shooting on a US military base.
Hassan admitted the murder in court and is currently on death row.
2021: Army Private First Class Cole James Bridges attempts to provide information to ISIS
In 2021, Bridges, a 24-year-old Army soldier, was arrested on charges of conspiring to bomb New York’s 9/11 memorial and helping ISIS kill American soldiers.
Bridges, who is currently serving 14 years in prison, was arrested when he began communicating online with an undercover FBI agent who appeared to be an ISIS supporter who was in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East.
2020: Army Private Ethan Meltzer provides information to neo-Nazi group
Meltzer, who was 24 years old at the time of his sentencing, is serving a 45-year sentence for transmitting classified U.S. military information to the occult-based neo-Nazi and white supremacist organization Nine Angles (O9A). . Mass casualty attack on Meltzer’s army units.
He was arrested in 2020 after enlisting in 2018 to infiltrate the military and gain insight into O9A’s activities. After being sent to guard a remote and sensitive foreign US military base, he began sharing details about the scene with O9A members and calling for deadly attacks on his colleagues.
2014: Frasier Glenn Miller kills three people outside a Jewish center
Miller, a lifelong white supremacist, shot and killed three people in Kansas in 2014, two outside a Jewish community center and one outside a Jewish nursing home.
Miller was vocal about his intent to kill Jews, even though all of his victims were Christians.
He served in the Army for 20 years, serving two tours of duty in the Vietnam War and 13 years as a member of the elite Green Berets. Miller, who led a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, had a history of run-ins with the law. He was convicted in 1987 of obtaining stolen military weapons, robbery and plotting an assassination, and served three years in prison.
Mr. Miller later died in prison.
What we know about the victims of the New Orleans terrorist attack
2014: Knife-wielding Navy veteran Zale Thompson injures police officer
Thompson, a Navy veteran, committed a Salafi-jihadist-inspired hatchet attack in Queens, New York in 2014, injuring four police officers. The attack was considered an act of terrorism because Thompson had recently converted to Islam. In the months leading up to the attack, he visited hundreds of websites associated with terrorist organizations. Mr. Thompson was involuntarily discharged from the Navy in 2003 after being arrested six times in domestic disputes between 2002 and 2003.
He was shot dead by police at the scene of the 2014 attack.
2016: Afghanistan war veteran Micah Xavier Johnson kills five police officers
In 2016, Johnson ambushed police officers in Dallas, Texas, killing five and injuring nine others. The 25-year-old Army Reserve and Afghanistan War veteran was outraged by the shooting death of a black man by police. He carried out the attack at the end of protests over recent police killings of Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile of Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
Dallas mourns the killing of five police officers
2020: Three veterans attempt to bomb Forest Service building
On May 30, 2020, authorities in Las Vegas charged Navy veteran Steven T. Parshall and Air Force veteran William L. Loomis, both with boogaloo voices, of conspiring to firebomb a U.S. Forest Service building. ) and arrested Army reservist Andrew Lynam. An electrical substation causing chaos during police protests after the killing of George Floyd.
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From 2017 to 2023, a total of 480 military veterans were charged with ideologically motivated extremist crimes, approximately 230 of whom were arrested in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
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