WHEN MAKING New Year’s resolutions few have violence on their minds. That was evidently not the case for Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old American citizen and military veteran from Texas. He rammed a rented Ford pickup truck into a crowd of revellers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the early hours of January 1st, killing 15 and injuring 35. After the crash police killed Mr Jabbar in a shoot-out. The FBI is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism; a black Islamic State (IS) flag flew from the bumper of the truck driven by Mr Jabbar and social media posts suggest he was a man of faith with intent to kill. The fact that he avoided detection suggests a fairly sophisticated conspiracy. “This is not a garden-variety attack,” says Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center, a global-security research group.
