• 10 people injured in New York City shooting
• FBI says suspect in New Orleans attack ‘acted alone’
LAS VEGAS: A Tesla Cybertruck exploded in flames outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on Wednesday, killing the driver and injuring seven others, and the FBI was investigating whether the blast was an act of terrorism or had any connection with the New Orleans truck attack, officials said.
Separately, 10 people were injured in a mass shooting in the New York City borough of Queens late on New Year’s Day, the police said in a news briefing early on Thursday.
Videos taken by witnesses inside and outside the Las Vegas hotel showed the vehicle exploding and flames pouring out of it, as it sat outside the hotel.
The incident occurred just hours after a man drove a truck into crowds of New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans, killing 15.
The Trump International Hotel is part of the Trump Organisation, the company of President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Jan 20.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a key backer of Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign and is also an adviser to the incoming president.
“Obviously a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel — there’s lots of questions that we have to answer,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at an afternoon press conference.
FBI special agent in charge Jeremy Schwartz later told reporters that it was not yet clear whether the blast was an act of terrorism. “I know everybody’s interested in that word, and trying to see if we can say, ‘Hey, this is a terrorist attack’. That is our goal, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Schwartz said.
He added that the FBI had identified the person driving the vehicle, which had been rented in Colorado, but was not yet ready to publicly identify the driver.
Musk said the blast was unrelated to the Cybertruck itself.
“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself,” Musk said in a post on X. “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”
Telemetry involves the automatic collection of data from remote sources, transmitting it back to a central source so it can later be analyzed.
A person was found dead inside the 2024 model-year Cybertruck and seven people sustained minor injuries from the explosion, McMahill said. He added that both the Cybertruck and the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack had been rented through car-sharing service Turo.
NYC shooting
The New York Police Department said the 10 injured in the incident outside a private events club late on Wednesday evening included six females and four males and all were expected to recover.
The incident occurred when three-four males opened fire toward a crowd outside the club, the NYPD said. Users took to social media expressing shock at the incident and sharing pictures of police deployment at the site.
Police ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack.
‘Suspect acted alone’
Meanwhile, US authorities were scrambling to track down suspects related to the New Orleans and Las Vegas incidents and also investigating possible terrorism angles.
The FBI said the US Army veteran who drove a truck into a crowd of New Year’s Day revelers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, but acted alone in the attack.
The suspect, who was shot dead at the scene after firing at police, has been identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texan who once served in Afghanistan.
He drove from Houston to New Orleans on Dec 31, and posted five videos on Facebook between 1.29am and 3.02am on the morning of the attack in which he said he supported the militant Islamic State group with fighters in Iraq and Syria, the FBI said.
The FBI said there appeared to be no link between the attack in New Orleans and the episode in Las Vegas.
Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2025
