Jethro Gibbs, the fictional special agent in the long-running TV series "NCIS," lives by a set of unwritten rules. Rule #1 is "Never let suspects sit together." Rule #6 is "Never say you're sorry. It's a sign of weakness."
Rule #39 is one to keep in mind as authorities investigate the two terror attacks on Wednesday: "There is no such thing as a coincidence."
Las Vegas and New Orleans are 1,700 miles apart, but each city saw a horrific terror attack. The FBI believes one of the connecting threads may be that both suspects served in the U.S. military.
Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old U.S. Army veteran, was found dead inside an explosives-filled Tesla Cybertruck that blew up outside Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel.
Denver-based station KMGH reports that Livelsberger served at the same Army base as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the suspect in a New Orleans attack. The investigation into the truck explosion has now moved to Colorado Springs, where Livelsberger lived. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has joined the FBI in Colorado to investigate where the suspect obtained the explosives.
ABC News reports that the FBI investigation has expanded to three other states, meaning the probe now encompasses criminal activity in at least four states and overseas.
A law enforcement official briefed on the probe told ABC News early Thursday that the truck was rented via the Turo app to a person named Matthew Livelsberger. The vehicle was picked up by license plate readers traveling from Colorado to Las Vegas on Wednesday morning.
Detectives are still working through forensics to determine the identity of the person behind the wheel of the truck at the time of the Vegas incident, the law enforcement official said. The fire and explosion made the identification process difficult because of the physical injuries sustained by the driver, the official said.
Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told reporters that Elon Musk, owner of Tesla, Inc., had been very helpful in the investigation. He had the truck unlocked after the auto-lock engaged after the explosion and supplied video from charging stations that tracked the suspect from Colorado to Las Vegas.
The FBI is still investigating "people of interest" throughout the country. It seems clear that this was a large conspiracy with several moving parts. We can only guess at the motive behind the attack. While Jabbar was "inspired" by ISIS, Matthew Livelsberger was an army veteran with no known links to Islamic extremism. The targeting of a Trump hotel suggests some other political motive.
The New Orleans F-150 and Tesla cyber truck were rented from the same Turo car and truck rental company, which allows private vehicle owners to rent cars directly to users. According to Kinney County, Texas, Sheriff Brad Coe, the New Orleans truck was owned by a man in Houston who bought it in 2024.
The IEDs were constructed at a New Orleans Airbnb, according to Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill. One was found in the F-150, while two others were discovered near the terrorist attack in the French Quarter. There was a remote control detonator in the truck that could have set off the IEDs, but Jabbar failed to do so.
Lone wolf terrorists can escape detection fairly easily. But a conspiracy involving people to rent trucks, drive them to New Orleans, build IEDs, drive a truck into a crowd of New Year's Eve revelers, and set off a truck bomb at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas should have shown up on someone's radar at some point.
They have no trouble unearthing right-wing conspiracies to kidnap governors or make a scene at school board meetings. But they missed another big one that was staring them right in the face.
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