Police have identified the suspect behind an attempted terror attack outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, including two startling connections to the suspect in the New Orleans terror attack on New Year’s Eve.
According to the Daily Mail, although law enforcement has not yet released the suspect’s name, they did carry out a raid of his home in Colorado Springs on Wednesday. The 37-year-old suspect, who was the sole casualty of the Cybertruck explosion, served at the same military base as Shamsud Din Jabbar, the terrorist who deliberately crashed his truck into a crowd of New Year’s Eve revelers in New Orleans on Tuesday. Jabbar was gunned down by the police after his rampage.
The Vegas suspect had multiple addresses connected to his name in the Colorado Springs area, which led to multiple neighbors being evacuated from the vicinity as the raid was conducted on his townhouse complex.
The suspect rented the Cybertruck in Colorado and drove it across the border on Wednesday morning. He arrived in Las Vegas at about 7:30 AM, with the explosion going off less than an hour later, at about 8:40 AM, as the car sat in the valet area immediately outside the Trump Hotel’s lobby.
Surveillance video captured the moment of the explosion, which killed the driver and caused several other injuries. The sturdy design of the Cybertruck was credited as a major reason for the explosion being largely contained, not causing more damage to the hotel and preventing fatal injuries to anyone else in the area. Inside the wreckage of the truck, police discovered fireworks, gas canisters, and camping fuel, presumably stored in the truck to act as accelerants for the explosion.
Following the Cybertruck explosion, speculation quickly arose that it was a targeted symbolic attack against President-elect Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as Musk is working closely with the president-elect ahead of his second inauguration on January 20th.
“’It’s a Tesla truck, we know Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump and it’s the Trump hotel, so there’s obviously something to look at,” said Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill.
On Tuesday night, 42-year-old Jabbar drove his F-150 pickup truck at high speed into a crowd of New Year’s Eve partygoers, killing 15 and causing dozens of injuries.
In another chilling connection to the Vegas suspect, the truck he used was also an electric vehicle (EV), and was rented through the same rental service as the Vegas suspect’s Cybertruck. Sheriff McMahill noted this commonality, suggesting that “perhaps they are linked in some way.”
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