The New Year had barely begun when one and possibly two terrorist attacks were unleashed that claimed the lives of more than a dozen innocent people.

In New Orleans, 15 people have so far died after a driver rammed a truck through a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street Wednesday morning. The driver had an ISIS flag in the rented pickup.

Police have since reported pipe bombs with a remote detonator were in the truck, as well as others placed in the French Quarter. The FBI told reporters that it doesn’t think the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, acted alone. (The bureau changed its mind and now suspects he did act alone.)

The Airbnb where he stayed and where bomb-making materials were reportedly found, also caught fire.

Later that same morning, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

In a post on X, Elon Musk wrote that “We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.”

As it happens, both the pickup used in the New Orleans attack and the Cybertruck had been rented through the Turo app, which calls itself “world’s largest car sharing marketplace,” and lets users rent cars from “trusted hosts.”

Is this the beginning of a wave of terror attacks inside the U.S.?

There’s reason to worry.

For almost four years, the Biden administration has been asleep at the wheel when it comes to terror threats.

After his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS “filled the power vacuum left behind by the U.S. and established a caliphate the size of Indiana to terrorize the region and inspire attacks across Europe and the U.S.,” Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., wrote back in April.

Biden’s open-border policy allowed suspected terrorists to flood into the U.S. An August report from the House Judiciary Committee found that Border Patrol agents “encountered” 250 people at the southern border who were on terrorist watch lists. At least 99 of them were later released into the U.S. Those are just the ones who were caught. There are countless “gotaways” who avoided being “encountered.”

The FBI has appeared to be more interested in tracking right-wing terror threats such as devout Catholics and mothers who speak up at school board hearings than actual terrorists.

It doesn’t help matters that the FBI at first pretended that the New Orleans attack wasn’t a terrorist attack, then said it is, then said Jabbar probably didn’t act alone, now says he probably did. Nor does it help that Biden’s first instinct was to look out for the interest of Muslims, saying that “nobody should jump to conclusions” – in remarks where he also noted the New Orleans killer “posted videos on social media indicating that he was inspired by ISIS, especially the desire to kill.”

These New Year’s Day attacks didn’t come out of the blue, and if history is a guide, they won’t be the last.

The only solace we have in all this is that there will be a new sheriff in town in 18 days.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board

Editor’s note: This editorial has been updated to reflect news that came out after it first posted.