Christina Morales
Appearances
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Yeah, it is. You know, I... To your point, one of the things that has stood out to me this week was a photo that was posted in 2013 by the 82nd Airborne Division where Jabbar was serving at the time. You know, it's a photo of him sitting in front of a laptop doing his IT work for the military. And there in the comments under the photo is his mom. She writes in there how proud they are of him.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
And she expresses thanks to all the people who are serving in the military, protecting the country. And now that family is trying to make sense of what happened this week. You know, how Jabbar had gone from someone who was protecting Americans to someone who has now murdered Americans.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Yeah, we spent a lot of our time the last two days tracing his life, trying to get to the bottom of that switch. You know, Jabbar grows up in Texas. He's raised a Christian, at some point converts to Islam. He goes off to the army. He deploys to Afghanistan as part of the war on terror. He earns a... Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. Wow. In the military, he's doing HR work and IT work.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
And then as he transitions out of the Army, he puts those skills to use. He goes to Georgia State. He gets a bachelor's degree in computer information systems. Then he goes back to Texas, works in real estate. And he actually posts a YouTube video at one point
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Where he's talking about his real estate business and he really, you can see him projecting a self-confidence.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
And that tech savviness he shows, you know, ultimately he lands himself a six-figure job at Deloitte, a really prominent consulting firm. So in the middle of all this, the people around him, his friends, his family, they're seeing a guy who's living... a normal and frankly successful life. A former schoolmate talks about him as being the quiet and studious type.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
A former neighbor we talked to said he was the kind of guy who would always refer to her as ma'am. He'd say, ma'am, hey, do you want some help with that? Can I help you bring in your groceries? Even his brother that we talked to, his brother spoke to Jabbar just a couple weeks ago and saw no inkling that there were any problems, that he was on a path to do something so horrific.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
And even at that consulting job that he had, Someone sent me a copy of his out of office reply that was still active as of yesterday. And he says he's out of town. Please expect a delay in response during this time. That's what he wrote. If the matter is time sensitive, please call or text me. That was the last message he had left there at his consulting job.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
Yeah, we can see that sort of behind this life of success that he was having, there were also some struggles. He had gone through two divorces. In the middle of the second one, at the start of 2022, he wrote an email to his wife's lawyer describing some financial troubles. He wrote... I cannot afford the house payment, describing past due payments over $27,000, danger of foreclosure.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
So he lays out there also some difficulties in his own work in real estate. Then more recently, some of the people who knew him described him as becoming erratic. We spoke to the husband of his first ex-wife. And he said they had grown so concerned about his behavior that they had decided to limit the contact he was having with his two daughters.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
We don't know exactly, but they felt like his behavior was becoming more unpredictable and a little bit frightening and suggested it had something to do with his religious beliefs growing more fervent. And what evidence do we have that his religious beliefs do grow more fervent? Well, the FBI in a press conference has now released more details on that question.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
They describe videos that Jabbar posted in the hours right before the New Orleans attack. They say he posted five videos, and in one of them, he describes how he joined ISIS before last summer, that he talked about initially having the idea of harming his own family and friends, but he worried that
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
that taking an action like that would result in news coverage that would not focus on what he said was, quote, the war between the believers and the disbelievers. And, you know, what's extraordinary about these videos is he starts posting them at 1.29 a.m. on the day of the attack and posts the last one a little after 3 a.m., just... minutes before the attack begins.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
And in one of them, he provided what the FBI described as a will and testament, suggesting that he knew he was headed to a situation where he was going to die.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
That's one of my big lingering questions. Investigators are searching certainly for that level of coordination or communication, but haven't disclosed any at this point. We've been doing our own searching through his really deep history on the internet and have yet to find any direct connections between himself and ISIS operatives. But that's certainly an open question.
The Daily
Terror in New Orleans
How did he get onto this path that he describes now in these videos?