The suspect involved in the car explosion at Las Vegas’ Trump hotel was an Army special operations soldier, military officials said.
Local authorities and the Army confirmed Matthew Livelsberger was driving the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded Wednesday in front of the hotel, killing the 37-year-old and injuring seven others.
The incident came just hours after another Army veteran, Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a car into a crowd in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, killing 15 people and injuring dozens more, according to the FBI. Jabbar, 42, died in a shootout with police.
The U.S. Army Special Operations Command said Livelsberger was “on approved leave at the time of his death,” according to a statement. The command “is in full cooperation with federal and state law enforcement agencies,” it added.
Livelsberger enlisted as an infantryman in 2006 and served through 2011. He then spent a year in the National Guard and Army Reserve before returning as an active duty special operations soldier in December 2012, according to the Army.
Army special operations soldiers, many of whom are referred to as Green Berets, perform a variety of missions from combat operations to training local forces around the globe. The Green Berets are often more experienced soldiers who have some language and cultural training to help them better identify and partner with the local forces they’re advising.
Incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox and Friends on Thursday that he had been in contact with current national security adviser Jake Sullivan about the Las Vegas explosion and the New Orleans attack over the last 24 hours.
“We’re not waiting on what we’re just getting from this White House,” Waltz said. “Everybody has feelers out so we keep President Trump as informed as possible.”
Waltz said he hadn’t been briefed on whether Jabbar, the New Orleans attacker, had been on the radar of law enforcement and the intelligence community before the attack.
Jabbar also served in the Army from 2006 to 2015 and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. He was a civilian at the time of this death.
Authorities have not released information that would indicate a connection between the two men. While Livelsberger was a special operations infantryman, Jabbar was a human resources and information technology specialist.
The FBI said Thursday it believes Jabbar acted alone in the New Orleans attack. “We do not assess at this point that anyone else is involved in this attack,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia with the counterintelligence division said during a news conference.
Initial reports indicate Jabbar had a black ISIS flag affixed to the hitch of a Ford F-150 Lightning truck, which he rented from the same online car rental company as Livelsberger used to rent his Cybertruck.
Jabbar had “posted videos to social media indicating that he was inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill,” President Joe Biden said.
