An official with the Daesh group has been detained in Iraq, suspected of being involved with inciting the pickup truck-ramming attack in New Orleans that killed more than a dozen people celebrating the start of 2025, Iraqi authorities said.
Iraqi authorities had received requests from the US to help in the investigation of the attack in the predawn hours of New Years Day in the famed French Quarter of New Orleans, Iraqi judicial officials said.
A US Army veteran driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Daesh group sped down Bourbon Street, running over some victims and ramming others, authorities said at the time. The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a US citizen from Texas, and said it was working to determine any potential associations with terrorist organizations.
After driving his pickup truck onto a sidewalk around a police car blocking an entrance to Bourbon Street and striking the New Year’s revelers, he crashed into construction equipment, authorities said. He then opened fire on police officers and Bourbon Street crowds, and was shot and killed by the officers, authorities said.
The FBI said shortly after the attack that it was investigating the crime as a terrorist act and did not believe the driver acted alone. Investigators found guns and what appeared to be an improvised explosive device in the vehicle, along with other devices elsewhere in the French Quarter.
Iraqi officials said that Baghdad’s Al-Karkh Investigative Court specified the suspect who was later detained and turned out to be a member of the Daesh group’s foreign operations office.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, did not release the name of the suspect, only saying that he is an Iraqi citizen. The officials said the man will be put on trial in accordance with the country’s anti-terrorism law, adding that Iraq is committed to international cooperation in fighting terrorism.
Despite its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, Daesh group still has sleeper cells that carry out deadly attack in both countries as well as other parts of the world.
The group once attracted tens of thousands of fighters and supporters from around the world to come to Syria and Iraq, and at its peak ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom and was notorious for its brutality. It beheaded civilians, slaughtered 1,700 captured Iraqi soldiers in a short period, and enslaved and raped thousands of women from the Yazidi community, one of Iraq’s oldest religious minorities.
Iraq detains Daesh suspect accused of helping to incite New Orleans truck ramming attack
https://arab.news/prcqc
Iraq detains Daesh suspect accused of helping to incite New Orleans truck ramming attack
- Iraqi authorities had received requests from the US to help in the investigation of the attack in the predawn hours of New Years Day
- A US Army veteran driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Daesh group sped down Bourbon Street, running over some victims and ramming others
India accelerates free trade agreements against backdrop of US tariffs
- India signed a CEPA with Oman on Thursday and a CETA with the UK in July
- Delhi is also in advanced talks for trade pacts with the EU, New Zealand, Chile
NEW DELHI: India has accelerated discussions to finalize free trade agreements with several nations, as New Delhi seeks to offset the impact of steep US import tariffs and widen export destinations amid uncertainties in global trade.
India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Oman on Thursday, which allows India to export most of its goods without paying tariffs, covering 98 percent of the total value of India’s exports to the Gulf nation.
The deal comes less than five months after a multibillion-dollar trade agreement with the UK, which cut tariffs on goods from cars to alcohol, and as Indian trade negotiators are in advanced talks with New Zealand, the EU and Chile for similar partnerships.
They are part of India’s “ongoing efforts to expand its trade network and liberalize its trade,” said Anupam Manur, professor of economics at the Takshashila Institution.
“The renewed efforts to sign bilateral FTAs are partly an after-effect of New Delhi realizing the importance of diversifying trade partners, especially after India’s biggest export market, the US, levied tariff rates of up to 50 percent on India.”
Indian exporters have been hit hard by the hefty tariffs that went into effect in August.
Months of negotiations with Washington have not clarified when a trade deal to bring down the tariffs would be signed, while the levies have weighed on sectors such as textiles, auto components, metals and labor-intensive manufacturing.
The FTAs with other nations will “help partially in mitigating the effects of US tariffs,” Manur said.
In particular, Oman can “act as a gateway to other Gulf countries and even parts of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Africa,” and the free trade deal will most likely benefit “labor-intensive sectors in India,” he added.
The chances of concluding a deal with Washington “will prove to be difficult,” said Arun Kumar, a retired economics professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“With the US, the chances of coming to (an agreement) are a bit difficult, because they want to get our agriculture market open, which we cannot do. They want us to reduce trade with Russia. That’s also difficult for India to do,” he told Arab News.
US President Donald Trump has threatened sanctions over India’s historic ties with Moscow and its imports of Russian oil, which Washington says help fund Moscow’s ongoing war with Ukraine.
“President Trump is constantly creating new problems, like with H-1B visa and so on now. So some difficulty or the other is expected. That’s why India is trying to build relationships with other nations,” Kumar said, referring to increased vetting and delays under the Trump administration for foreign workers, who include a large number of Indian nationals.
“Substituting for the US market is going to be tough. So certainly, I think India should do what it can do in terms of promoting trade with other countries.”
India has free trade agreements with more than 10 countries, including comprehensive economic partnership agreements with South Korea, Japan, and the UAE.
It is in talks with the EU to conclude an FTA, amid new negotiations launched this year for trade agreements, including with New Zealand and Chile.
India’s approach to trade partnerships has been “totally transformed,” Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said in a press briefing following the signing of the CEPA with Oman, which Indian officials aim to enter into force in three months.
“Now we don’t do FTAs with other developing nations; our focus is on the developed world, with whom we don’t compete,” he said. “We complement and therefore open up huge opportunities for our industry, for our manufactured goods, for our services.”
