HOUSTON – ISIS-inspired New Orleans terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar kept a bomb-making workbench in his ramshackle Texas trailer home — where a Quran was left open on a page about “slaying” in the name of Allah, exclusive photos obtained by The Post show.
Jabbar’s north Houston home was filled with chemical residue and chemical bottles, while an inventory of items seized by the FBI — left behind by investigators who raided his house on Wednesday — included a long list of compounds used in bomb-making.
His Quran was propped atop a bookshelf, a centerpiece in his living room, and open to a passage reading, “they fight in Allah’s cause, and slay and are slain; a promise binding…”
That passage, Verse 9:111, expounds on Muslims’ responsibility to kill Allah’s enemies, and to be willing to die for that mission in return for eternity in paradise.
Numerous books about Islam were also on the shelf and around the squalid home, while a prayer rug was rolled up nearby.
FBI officials on Thursday said Jabbar posted five disturbing videos on Facebook on his drive from Houston to New Orleans just hours before he unleashed carnage on Bourbon Street, leaving 14 innocent pedestrians dead.
In the first disturbing video — posted at 1:29 a.m. — the US Army veteran said he had initially planned on murdering his family and friends, but changed his mind over concerns the resulting media coverage wouldn’t focus on the “war between the believers and disbelievers,” FBI counterterrorism official Chris Raia said.
In other videos, he said he had joined ISIS “before this summer” and showed off his last will and testament.
Investigators confirmed Jabbar, 42, was ideologically aligned with ISIS and that he specifically chose Bourbon Street as the target of his monstrous act of terror.
However, they have yet to piece together what precisely brought about his radicalization.
The IT whiz was on a legitimate career path until apparently falling on hard times both personally and financially.
He contended with two failed marriages and faced mounting debt before he murdered 14 innocent pedestrians and injured dozens more with an explosive-laden Ford F-150 truck bearing the black flag of the jihadist group.
Born in Texas, Jabbar joined the Army in 2006, serving at bases in Alaska and North Carolina before being deployed to Afghanistan in 2009, where he served for 11 months, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Although it isn’t believed he served in a combat role, he was promoted to staff sergeant sometime in 2013.
Before leaving the Army as an active duty soldier two years later, Jabbar picked up a pair of disciplinary actions for driving under the influence, according to the outlet.
After five years as a reservist, he was honorably discharged and before long was studying computer-information systems at Georgia State University while simultaneously working as a senior cloud analyst at Big 4 consulting firm Accenture, the outlet writes citing an online résumé he posted.
Then from 2019 to 2021 he worked at EY — also a Big 4 firm — as a cloud consulting manager before landing a gig at yet another top consultancy, Deloitte, where he earned a salary of $125,000.
Meanwhile, Jabbar’s family life was in turmoil.
His first wife — from whom he separated in 2012 — got custody of the couple’s children, while he was ordered to pay child support as well as for their medical insurance.
He remarried in 2017, but three years later his second marriage hit the skids, his ex was granted a restraining order which prohibited Jabbar from sending her obscene or threatening messages, threatening “bodily injury” to her or the couple’s child, the outlet reported.
During the divorce proceedings — which came after a failed attempt by the couple to reconcile — Jabbar provided a statement to the court claiming financial hardship, with $7,500 a month in income and just shy of $9,000 in liabilities.
His younger brother, 24-year-old Abdur Jabbar, described him as “a sweetheart really, a nice guy, a friend, really smart, caring.”
“This is more some type of radicalization, not religion,” the brother told the New York Times.
The FBI revealed that Jabbar acted alone in the attack after poring over his social media accounts, conducting “hundreds” of interviews with witnesses and searching three cell phones and two laptops recovered from an Airbnb on Mandeville Street in New Orleans linked to the terror suspect.
“Digital media exploitation is a priority,” Raia said.
Raia said the group of individuals seen on surveillance video looking inside coolers were “patriots” just poking around.
Two IEDs in coolers planted along Bourbon Street were later recovered.
“There was nothing to indicate through call records, interviews, or anything in our systems that he was aided in this attack by anybody,” Raia said.
Back in Houston, Jabbar told neighbors in the predominantly Muslim area that he was moving to New Orleans for a new job in IT just hours before driving off in the same white truck he would use in his massacre.
Muntaz Bashir, who lives next door, said he offered to help Jabbar move that morning, but the killer explained he was moving to a furnished apartment in New Orleans, and wasn’t bringing anything with him.
“Unfortunately, you can’t read someone’s mind,” Bashir said, explaining that Jabbar appeared completely normal when they spoke that morning.
“I was shocked.”
The trailer was left in a state of disarray, with the front door kicked down, cabinets thrown open, and cheap furniture tossed around the place after the raid by the feds.
A back bedroom was filled with children’s toys and bunk beds, while the main bedroom had a keffiyeh hanging in the closet.
Lawmakers were briefed about the incident Thursday and were told Jabbar, who was killed in a shootout with cops, had never been on a terror watchlist prior to the rampage, sources told The Post.