The white pickup truck with an ISIS flag attached to its trailer hitch that tore through Bourbon Street in New Orleans during the first few hours of New Year’s Day of 2025 symbolizes an inflection point for the American people and their leaders. Revelry, music and laughter gave way to terror as fifteen people lost their lives and dozens of others were left with crippling, life-altering injuries from yet another jihadist attack on U.S. soil. The suspected attacker, Samshud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen and former member of the U.S. Army Reserve from Texas, died in a firefight with local police, but given reports of ISIS-affiliated terrorists crossing America’s southern border, the threat of more attacks did not die with him.
According to the FBI, the Bourbon Street massacre appears to be part of a larger coordinated attack involving accomplices. Hours after yet another example of “vehicular jihad” in New Orleans, a rented Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, killing one and injuring seven. Both vehicles reportedly were procured through the same app, Turo, indicating a common thread of planning and execution. Even if there is no connection between the two attacks, the Bourbon Street attack, by itself, serves as a stark reminder that Islamist terrorism is neither distant nor diminished. It is here, and it is lethal.
Islamist terrorism is neither distant nor diminished. It is here, and it is lethal.
The Bourbon Street attack—similar to those motivated by Islamist hostility toward non-Muslim holidays and the people who celebrate them—highlights the Biden administration’s failure to prioritize the fight against jihadist extremism. The Biden administration, more concerned with optics than outcomes, has left the nation vulnerable with its failure to protect the country’s borders and tendency to mainstream, and even fund, Islamist organizations in the United States. But the problem didn’t begin with President Joe Biden. During his first administration, President Donald Trump provided substantial funding to Islamist organizations who stoked anti-Americanism. The moment demands a bipartisan acknowledgment of what is at stake and a willingness to act accordingly.
The strategy behind these attacks is not new, but its simplicity belies its power. A rented truck, a crowded celebration, and an ideology that thrives on destruction. ISIS, though territorially defeated by the Trump administration, remains ideologically potent, capable of inspiring followers through propaganda that preys on discontent and alienation. The result is a decentralized network of actors willing and able to execute plans that wreak havoc with minimal resources. The choice of targets—a festive gathering in New Orleans, a symbolic location in Las Vegas—appears deliberate, designed to inflict maximum psychological and societal damage.
The United States has faced this horror before. The Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, the attack at Ohio State University in 2016, the bike path massacre in New York City in 2017—each followed a pattern of exploiting the ordinary to create extraordinary fear. The lessons should have been clear: complacency is fatal. Yet time and again, the response has been reactive, focusing on damage control rather than prevention. The penchant to pursue damage control was particularly evident during the local press conference after the Bourbon Street jihad when state and city officials were forced to acknowledge that they had failed to install bollards, which might have prevented the attack, in time to avert the massacre. The threat has been present since 2006 when Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove a rented Jeep into a crowd of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Our enemies make no secret of their tactics. Consider Hoda Muthana, the so-called “ISIS Bride,” whose propaganda helped refine and spread the tactic of what commentator A.J. Caschetta dubbed “vehicular jihad.” Her infamous March 19, 2015, tweet urging jihadis to “rent a big truck and drive all over them” demonstrated the normalization of this deadly tactic. Her call to target parades and celebrations resonates chillingly with the attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Muthana was not a naïve child; she was a propagandist whose influence helped shape the operational methods of extremists. Her strategic messaging underscores the ideological roots that continue to inspire and evolve long after the collapse of ISIS’s territorial stronghold.
The failures of the Biden administration to address these evolving threats are stark. By broadening the definition of extremism to encompass a range of issues, the administration diluted its focus on the specific and ongoing dangers posed by Islamist networks. This scattershot approach has left gaps—gaps that groups like ISIS are more than willing to exploit. Meanwhile, Trump’s first term, though marked by strong rhetoric, lacked the cohesive strategy needed to dismantle these networks. As president-elect, he must not squander his second chance.
The online radicalization pipeline—enabled by platforms unwilling or unable to monitor extremist content—must be disrupted.
To confront this menace, America requires leadership that prioritizes action over platitudes. Intelligence sharing must be streamlined, ensuring that federal, state, and local agencies operate in unison to prevent attacks before they occur. The online radicalization pipeline—enabled by platforms unwilling or unable to monitor extremist content—must be disrupted. Companies like Turo, whose services were exploited in these attacks, must be held accountable, forced to implement safeguards that prevent their platforms from becoming tools of terror.
Securing public spaces must go beyond installing barriers. It requires rethinking urban design and investing in technologies that detect threats in real time. Immigration policies, too, need scrutiny. While many attackers are homegrown, porous borders and insufficient vetting processes remain vulnerabilities. And perhaps most critically, we must fight the ideological battle with as much vigor as the physical one. Calling out Islamist organizations and counter-radicalization programs must address the root causes that make individuals susceptible to extremist ideologies, not provide funding to their purveyors.
These attacks, horrific as they are, offer a chance to recalibrate. As Trump prepares to take office, he carries the burden of addressing what his predecessors could not. The New Orleans and Las Vegas tragedies are more than isolated incidents; they are part of a broader pattern that demands a unified, relentless response.
The broken glass and bloodstains on Bourbon Street, the shattered calm outside Trump Hotel Las Vegas—these are the realities of a nation under siege. The grieving families, the survivors left with physical and emotional scars, deserve more than hollow assurances. They deserve action. They deserve a government that prioritizes their safety, that confronts the threat with the seriousness it demands.
America cannot afford to look away. The fight against Islamist terrorism is not a relic of the past. It is a pressing, present danger. The time to act is now, before the next attack, before more lives are lost. This is a battle that we can win, but only with leadership that understands the stakes and refuses to waver.
