LAST UPDATE | 1 Jan

AT LEAST 10 people have died and dozens are injured following a “mass casualty incident” in New Orleans, after a vehicle was driven into a crowd celebrating the New Year.

City authorities have urged the public to stay clear of the area, as ten people were killed and more than another 35 injured in the overnight incident, described as an attack. 

Police said the incident took place at around 3.15am, local time, in the heart of the city’s famous French Quarter, which was packed with people celebrating the arrival of 2025.

Law enforcement officials identified the driver as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, who was killed in a firefight with police.

The FBI also said that he was carrying the flag of international jihadist group Islamic State.

“An ISIS flag was located in the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organisations,” the FBI said in a statement.

A photo circulated among law enforcement officials showed Jabbar wearing camouflage next to the truck after he was killed by police.

“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could,” Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters.

“He was hell bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said, adding that the driver had fired on police officers, wounding two of them.

Security personnel gather at the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans' Canal and Bourbon Street Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Investigators also found two homemade bombs in the wake of the deadly truck attack in the city’s French Quarter, and those devices have been “rendered safe,” an FBI official said.

“As of now, two IEDs have been found and rendered safe,” FBI special agent Alethea Duncan told a press conference, using an acronym for improvised explosive devices.

Crowds in the city were ballooning ahead of the Sugar Bowl, a major college football playoff game that has drawn tens of thousands of fans to New Orleans.

“All agree that it’s in the best interest of everybody… that we postpone the game for 24 hours,” Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley told a press conference about the game pitting the University of Georgia against the University of Notre Dame.

A Georgia student was among those critically injured in the attack, the university’s president announced.

US media outlet CBS News cites witnesses saying a truck rammed though a barrier and into the crowd at “high speed” before its driver jumped out and started firing a weapon, with police returning fire.

President Joe Biden said the FBI is investigating the “horrific incident” as “an act of terrorism” and that he has directed his team to ensure every resource is available as authorities work to “get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible”.

“My heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday,” Biden said in a written statement.

“There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities.”

With reporting from AFP and Press Association