Las Vegas police announced that a “Cyber Tracke” pickup truck produced by Tesla exploded on Wednesday morning in front of the Trump Hotel in the American city, killing one person and slightly injuring seven others, and authorities are investigating a possible link to the New Orleans attack, according to President Joe Biden.
Las Vegas police chief Kevin Mcmahill said at a press conference: “there is a dead person inside (CyberTracke),” in addition to seven other people with “minor injuries”.
Possible connection
In a brief statement, Biden confirmed that the authorities are investigating whether there is” any possible link “between the explosion and the bloody attack in New Orleans, explaining that there is no indication of that “so far”.
FBI official Jeremy Schwartz said: “We believe this is an isolated incident.
He explained that a joint counterterrorism team of the FBI is conducting an investigation with two main goals: to ascertain the identity of “the person involved in this incident”, and to determine “whether this was a terrorist act or not”.
Scenes posted on social networking sites showed the explosion of the gray cybertrack electric pickup truck while parked in front of the hotel entrance, on which the name “Trump” was written in large letters, leaving a huge cloud of smoke.
Statements without evidence
Before Biden’s statement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed on the X-platform that the explosion was ” caused by a large firework or a bomb placed in the back of a rented CyberTracker truck and has nothing to do with the vehicle itself,” without supporting his statements with evidence.
Speaking about the explosion, he added, “We have never seen anything like it before”.
Musk is an ally of President-elect Donald Trump, who has tasked him with leading a commission tasked with deregulating and reducing public spending in the future administration.
“It’s a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and this is Trump Tower,” Mcmahill said, adding, “So there are obviously things to worry about, and this is something we are continuing to investigate.
Two trucks and one application
The explosion occurred hours after a former US soldier, identified by the FBI as Shamsuddin Jabbar, was suspected of running over a crowd of people with a truck in the city of New Orleans.
This attack, which the Federal Police considered a “terrorist”, resulted in the death of at least 15 people and the injury of about thirty others.
Investigators said they found the flag of the organization “ISIS” Inside the truck in New Orleans.
The police revealed that the truck was rented in Colorado through the company “Toro”, the same application that was used to rent the truck in the New Orleans attack.
A spokesman for the app, which is used by millions of people in the United States, said they were working with law enforcement authorities, adding that the tenants “do not have a criminal record that would identify them as a security threat”.
A coincidence to be explored
Mcmahill considered that renting the two trucks via the same application “a coincidence… We have to keep looking at it”.
The Las Vegas police chief told reporters that there was “no indication” that the explosion outside the Trump hotel was linked to ISIS.
“No ISIS flag is as visible as it was in New Orleans,”he added.
Minor damage
McMahill had previously stressed: “as expected, with an explosion here on the famous street in Las Vivas, we are taking all necessary precautions to keep our community safe.
The rear of the vehicle contained petrol canisters and “large pyrotechnic projectiles”, he added, adding that the chassis of the pickup truck “limited the damage”.
Mcmahill confirmed that ” most of the explosion penetrated the top of the (vehicle) and came out of it. And if you watch the video, you will see that the glass doors of the Trump hotel were not even shattered by the explosion, “he said.
