The ISIS Terrorist I Once Knew

This is a guest post from the JPF family by David Bogart

All stories written by Reuben Salsa (every Thursday, 8 am Auckland time) are for paid subscribers only. Guest posts will remain free and posted every Sunday and the occasional Tuesday (8 am Auckland time).

For more articles by Jewish authors, subscribe to the JPF on Medium (click on the image below).

For more Jewish authors, click on the image to follow the JPF on Medium.

---

isis terror

The ISIS Terrorist I Once Knew

New Year’s Day 2025 was the finale of an incredible 24-hour cycle. My wife and I had just welcomed our second child into the world, Sophia Eliza. I sat there looking at my wife, beaming as she cuddled our little brand-new baby girl. Exhausted from the prior day's events, I sat slumped on the recovery room couch, peering into the TV and barely paying attention to it.

All of a sudden, the news headline on TV came into focus: “Terrorist Attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans”. At about 3:15 AM, a 42-year-old man from Houston, Texas drove a Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck into a crowd of pedestrians. After ramming the crowd, he exited the vehicle and opened fire with a .308 AR-10 rifle and Glock pistol. It was later found that he had two pipe bombs on his person, which went unused. Fifteen people had died (including the terrorist) with 57 injured including two police officers. The terrorist was ultimately killed by police in a shootout.

The news correspondent read out the terrorist’s name on the screen: Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar. It was almost impossible for me not to place the name immediately due to its familiarity to me. ‘Shams’ and I had worked together at the same company on a cloud implementation project for many months in Cincinnati, Ohio several years ago. We collaborated, ate meals together, traveled back to the airport at times together. We played trivia together. I couldn’t believe it. I just said, “Oh my God.” When I saw his photo on TV, that completely confirmed that I knew this man.

We were not particularly close, he and I. Then again, he didn’t seem especially warm to anyone on the team based on my recollection. Shams was a military man, and that much was evident from our first meeting. He was polite, eloquent, intelligent, on time, and consistently delivered his work. Writing this now, yes it feels odd to be complimenting a terrorist’s character. Astonished, I had to go back to our email correspondence just to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Sure enough, this mild-mannered guy was the same one who committed these despicable and disgusting acts in the early morning hours of New Years Day.

I wrote to a few of my former team members, and we all could not believe Shams was capable of such a thing. He had a relatively small criminal record before he committed these acts. Looking at interviews, his brother confirmed as much:

“This wasn’t the man I knew. I understand people want answers, but we’re just as puzzled as the rest of the world. Sham believed his Islamic faith taught him that partying in places like New Orleans wasn’t righteous. But he never gave any red flags leading up to this,” said Abdur Rahem Jabbar, Shams’ younger brother.

Mugshot of Shamsud-Din Jabbar From 2015 DUI arrest

I suppose the most chilling aspect of this revelation is the ‘not knowing’ — the lack of red flags. “Do you ever really know somebody?” I thought to myself. Or how about the fact that this man once served in our armed forces? It turns out that this once bright and promising guy ended up later being radicalized online and inspired by ISIS. Sham posted pro-ISIS videos hours before the attack and pledged allegiance to them, claiming to have joined the group before the summer of 2024. An ISIS flag was found in his truck.

Red circle highlighting ISIS flag, fallen out of the demolished truck.

Sham was part of ISIS’ ‘external operations office’ which is known for encouraging attacks abroad. Earlier in April, this event resurfaced in my mind because I saw that Iraqi authorities had arrested an ISIS member who was connected to the New Orleans Truck attack. This unnamed man is expected to be tried in Iraq under anti-terrorism laws.

The type of transformation that Sham made was not just an anecdotal but a pattern, a similar framework had been implemented and ongoing for years in the middle east. A significant number of individuals who joined or supported ISIS were originally citizens of European countries — a phenomenon known as ‘foreign fighter crisis’. This was commonplace during the 2013–2017 period at the height of ISIS’s territorial breadth in places like Iraq and Syria. Roughly 5,000 individuals with European passports are believed to have traveled to join ISIS and other Jihadist groups: specifically drawing large numbers from bastions of liberal freedom like France, U.K. and Belgium. Notably, the Bataclan attackers in the 2015 Paris attacks were European citizens who had joined ISIS.

Motivations tied to this ‘foreign fighter crisis’ often manifest through online radicalization or local extremist networks. Some, like Sham, were drawn by ideological beliefs that are at odds with their host country. Others may have grievances towards Western foreign policy, or even a twisted sense of thrill-seeking. This is the danger of religious extremism. If war is desired by the soul and mind, war can also be condoned in religious doctrine as seen in Surah Al-Baqarah 2:191, “Kill them wherever you come upon them and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out. For persecution is far worse than killing. And do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque unless they attack you there. If they do so, then fight them — that is the reward of the disbelievers.”

While some European governments have implemented stricter counterterrorism laws in the years since, revoked citizenships, or tightened border controls, many in the West may be left to wonder if it’s not enough. Since September 11th, 2001, there have been over 200,000 terrorist attacks recorded worldwide, resulting in more than 400,000 deaths and thousands of injuries. according to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD).

Car ramming in places like France and Germany (and now New Orleans) are a signature form of Jihadist attack not dissimilar from what has historically been seen in the West Bank and settlement territories. It is staggering that in 2024 and 2025, we had three of the same copycat attacks in New Orleans, Magdeburg, and Munich.

I am having a déjà vu moment now, thinking back to my time as an undergrad in England, where I was nearly the victim of a car ramming. In the fall of 2010, I was walking the streets of London in a neighborhood called Acton Town. We’d wandered off from the Tube line exit and stumbled upon an unfamiliar place, as tourists often do. Acton Town is a middle-class neighborhood with large pockets of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and other ethnic groups living there. All of a sudden, a car swerved aggressively at my girlfriend and me as we were walking, clearly trying to strike us. I jumped back and yanked my girlfriend out of the way. If I had any doubt that this was an accident, it was discredited immediately by the driver’s reaction. He got out of his car, told me I was in the wrong neighborhood, and drove off with hateful, glaring eyes. The exact verbiage is cloudy, as this was 15 years ago, but I never forgot the incident.

Extremism is not owned by any one ethnic group or religion. There is something markedly sinister about those who blend in and go about their day-to-day lives while formulating plans to commit atrocities against innocent people because their value system is at odds with others’ beliefs. This thinking is an affront to Americanism, liberalism, and democracy. It represents a betrayal of the very freedoms that allow diverse communities to coexist. There is the insidious archetype — the hidden monster, assuredly so. But when we confront evil hiding in plain sight, do Westerners have the courage to combat these uncomfortable truths when given the opportunity? Could we recognize it if evil were screaming in front of our faces?

This determination remains to be seen. But the answer to that question will inform not just where we are, but where we are going — for generations to come.