Vehicle-ramming attack explained

See main article: article and Vehicular homicide. A vehicle-ramming attack, also known as a vehicle as a weapon or VAW attack,[1] is an assault in which a perpetrator deliberately rams a vehicle into a building, people,[2] [3] or another vehicle. According to Stratfor Global Intelligence analysts, this attack represents a relatively new militant tactic that could prove more difficult to prevent than suicide bombings.

Deliberate vehicle-ramming into a crowd of people is a tactic used by terrorists,[4] becoming a major terrorist tactic in the 2010s because it requires little skill to perpetrate, cars and trucks are widely available, and it has the potential to cause significant casualties.[5] [6] [7] Deliberate vehicle-ramming has also been carried out in the course of other types of crimes,[8] including road rage incidents.[9] [10] Deliberate vehicle-ramming incidents have also sometimes been ascribed to the driver's psychiatric disorder.[11]

Vehicles have also been used by attackers to breach buildings with locked gates, before detonating explosives, as in the Saint-Quentin-Fallavier attack.[12]

Causes and motives

Ease

According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the tactic has gained popularity because "Vehicle ramming offers terrorists with limited access to explosives or weapons an opportunity to conduct a homeland attack with minimal prior training or experience."[2] Vehicles are as easy to acquire as knives, but unlike knives, which may arouse suspicion if found in one's possession, vehicles are essential for daily life, and the capability of vehicles to cause casualties if used aggressively is underestimated.[13]

Islamic terrorism

Counterterrorism researcher Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Slate that the tactic has been on the rise in Israel because, "the security barrier is fairly effective, which makes it hard to get bombs into the country."[14] In 2010, Inspire, the online, English-language magazine produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula urged mujahideen to choose "pedestrian only" locations and make sure to gain speed before ramming their vehicles into the crowd in order to "achieve maximum carnage".[14]

Vehicle attacks can be carried out by lone-wolf terrorists who are inspired by an ideology but who are not working within a specific political movement or group.[15] Writing for The Daily Beast, Jacob Siegel suggests that the perpetrator of the 2014 Couture-Rouleau attack may be "the kind of terrorist the West could be seeing a lot more of in the future", a kind that he describes, following Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation, as "stray dogs", rather than lone wolves, characterizing them as "misfits" who are "moved from seething anger to spontaneous deadly action" by exposure to Islamist propaganda.[16] A 2014 propaganda video by ISIL encouraged French sympathizers to use cars to run down civilians.[17]

According to Clint Watts, of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he is a senior fellow and expert on terrorism, the older model where members of groups like al-Qaeda would "plan and train together before going to carry out an attack, became defunct around 2005", due to increased surveillance by Western security agencies.[16] Watts says that Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born al-Qaeda imam, as a key figure in this shift, addressing English-speakers in their language and urging them to "Do your own terrorism and stay in place."[16]

Jamie Bartlett, who heads the Violence and Extremism Program at Demos, a British think tank, explains that "the internet in the last few years has both increased the possibilities and the likelihood of lone-wolf terrorism", supplying isolated individuals with ideological motivation and technique.[18] For authorities in Western countries, the difficulty is that even in a case like that of the perpetrator of the 2014 Couture-Rouleau attack, where Canadian police had identified the attacker, taken away his passport, and were working with his family and community to steer him away from jihad, vehicle attacks can be hard to prevent because, "it's very difficult to know exactly what an individual is planning to do before a crime is committed. We cannot arrest someone for thinking radical thoughts; it's not a crime in Canada."[18] [19]

According to Stratfor, the American global intelligence firm, "while not thus far as deadly as suicide bombing", this tactic could prove more difficult to prevent. No single group has claimed responsibility for the incidents.[20] Experts see a saving grace in the ignorance and incompetence of most lone-wolf terrorists, who often manage to murder very few people.[18]

Protest encounters

Vehicular ramming has sometimes been advocated to attack protesters who block public roadways in the United States. Two police officers were suspended and fired in January and June 2016, respectively, for tweeting such advice about Black Lives Matter rallies, which have sometimes been broken up by cars. North Dakota state legislator Keith Kempenich tried and failed to pass a law granting civil immunity to drivers who accidentally hit activists after his mother-in-law was stopped by Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, and Tennessee Senator Bill Ketron did likewise after a man hit an anti-Trump group. Similar legislation has been introduced in Florida and Texas.[21]

Protective measures

See main article: Hostile vehicle mitigation. Protective measures against vehicle attacks are known as hostile vehicle mitigation. This involves reducing the risk posed by vehicle as a weapon attacks through a mixture of measures. Visibly this often includes physical barriers, but also includes other measures such as deterrence, staff training, traffic management, and incident response planning.[22]

Security bollards are credited with minimizing damage and casualties in the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack,[23] [24] and with preventing ramming in the 2014 Alon Shvut stabbing attack, leading the assailant to abandon his car and attack pedestrians waiting at a bus stop with a knife, after his effort to run them over was thwarted.[25] However, Berlin's police chief, Klaus Kandt, argued that bollards would not have prevented the 2016 Berlin truck attack, and that the required security measures would be "varied, complex, and far from a panacea".[26]

On 23 October 2014, the US National Institute of Building Sciences updated its Building Design Guideline on Crash- and Attack-Resistant Models of bollards, a guideline written to help professionals design bollards to protect facilities from vehicle operators, "who plan or carry out acts of property destruction, incite terrorism, or cause the deaths of civilian, industrial or military populations".[27] The American Bar Association recommends bollards as effective protection against car-ramming attacks.[28]

In January 2018, it was announced by the then mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, that the city planned to install 1,500 steel street barriers to prevent vehicle attacks. This came after the city's two vehicle-ramming attacks in 2017 killed nine people.[29]

Münster has been planning to install security bollards in public areas in response to vehicle-ramming attacks in European cities, including the Berlin attack.[30] While only selected locations can be protected this way, tight bends and restricted-width streets may also prevent a large vehicle getting speed before reaching a barrier.[31]

Modern Internet-connected drive-by-wire cars can potentially be hacked remotely and used for such attacks. To demonstrate the severity of this type of attack, 2015 hackers remotely carjacked a Jeep from 10 miles away and drove it into a ditch.[32] [33] Measures for cybersecurity of automobiles to prevent such attacks are often criticized as being insufficient.

In Toronto, older transit buses and sanitation vehicles are used as anti-ramming barricades, providing a more benign public experience.[34]

List of attacks

See main article: List of vehicle-ramming attacks. In chronological order:

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 19 August 2021 . The National Vehicle Threat Mitigation Unit . Protect UK.
  2. Web site: Issued 13 December 2012. Department of Homeland Security-FBI Warning: Terrorist Use of Vehicle Ramming Tactics. 14 February 2012. FBI and Department of Homeland Security. 6 November 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141028004254/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140721-gaza-strip-tunnels-israel-hamas-palestinians/. 28 October 2014. live. dmy-all.
  3. Book: Rapoport, David C.. Terrorism: The fourth or religious wave. 2006. Taylor & Francis. 978-0-415-31654-5. 150–. 10 December 2014. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20141210203752/https://books.google.com/books?id=E1_SxOuUHmIC&pg=PA150. dmy-all.
  4. News: Mass casualty traffic incidents like Endymion's are rare, but do happen. New Orleans Times-Picayune. 14 March 2016. 27 February 2017.
  5. Amanda Erickson & Isaac Stanley-Becker, How ramming cars into crowds became a major terror tactic, Washington Post (22 March 2017).
  6. Keating. Joshua. Why Terrorists Use Vehicles as Weapons. 27 September 2017. Slate. 5 November 2014.
  7. News: Jamison. Alastair. Truck Attacks: Low-Tech, Soft Target Terrorism Is Growing Threat. 27 September 2017. NBC News. 20 December 2016.
  8. David Ormerod, John Cyril Smith & Brian Hogan, Smith and Hogan's Criminal Law (13th ed. 2011: Oxford University Press), p. 1138: "There are at least six ways that a person might be held liable for causing a death by driving. At the most extreme it is possible for D[efendant] to be liable for murder, as when he drivers at V[ictim] with intent to kill or do gbh (great bodily harm)."
  9. R.G. Smart, "Transport Related Stress" in Stress Consequences: Mental, Neuropsychological and Socioeconomic (ed. George Fink: Academic Press, 2009), p. 708: "A national study in the United States found that ... of respondents ... 1-2% had gotten out of their cars to hurt other drivers, deliberately hit other drivers, or had carried a weapon."
  10. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/audi-driver-pleads-guilty-after-video-shows-him-mowing-down-man-in-road-rage-incident-in-new-brunswick Audi driver pleads guilty after video shows him mowing down man in road-rage incident in New Brunswick
  11. Alan R. Felthouse, "Personal Violence" in The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Forensic Psychiatry (2d ed.: eds. Robert I. Simon & Liza H. Gold), pp. 551-52: "An automobile is a potentially lethal machine. Litigation involving psychiatrists has resulted when a hospitalized patient, after discharges, caused a two-person vehicle accident with death or injuries to one or more victims ... Such cases involve three different types of scenarios. One is the vehicular crash that results from the patient's medication-induced drowsiness at the wheel ... The second scenario is a true accident but is unrelated to any prescribed medication. Rather, the patient's driving is impaired by the disabling effects of mental illness [or] recent consumption of nonprescribed drugs or alcohol. The third situation is when the patient deliberately crashes into another vehicle. Neuropsychiatric conditions that can be associated with an increased risk of vehicular crash include psychotic exacerbation of schizophrenia, profound or suicidal depression, dementia, and disturbances in consciousness, such as epilepsy and narcolepsy."
  12. Web site: Weinberg . Stevie . The June 26 Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (France) Attack . IDC Herzliya . 24 September 2021.
  13. Web site: The New Tools of Terror: Vehicular Violence at Center of Recent Attacks . Blake . Paul . Kreider . Randy . . 17 September 2020.
  14. Keating. Joshua. Why Terrorists Use Vehicles as Weapons. 6 November 2014. Slate. 5 November 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141106024619/http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/11/05/car_attack_in_jerusalem_why_are_terrorists_ramming_vehicles_into_crowds.html. live. 6 November 2014. dmy-all.
  15. News: Daly. Brian. Lone wolf terrorists hard to stop. 6 November 2014. QMI. Edmonton Sun. 21 October 2014.
  16. News: Siegel. Jacob. Lone Wolves, Terrorist Runts, and the Stray Dogs of ISIS Why ISIS and al Qaeda rely on loners and losers to carry out their terrorist agenda in the West. 7 November 2014. Daily Beast. 24 October 2014. live. 7 November 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141107133653/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/24/in-canada-the-stray-dogs-of-isis.html. dmy-all.
  17. Web site: ISIS and Al Qaeda have specifically called for the type of attack that just happened in France. Business Insider.
  18. News: Bajekal. Naina. The Rise of the Lone Wolf Terrorist. 6 November 2014. Time Magazine. 23 October 2014. live. 14 November 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141114150324/http://time.com/3533581/canada-ottawa-shooting-lone-wolf-terrorism/. dmy-all.
  19. News: Mataconis. Doug. The attack on Canada's Parliament and the 'lone wolf' terrorist. 6 November 2014. Christian Science Monitor. 23 October 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141106160115/http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Voices/2014/1023/The-attack-on-Canada-s-Parliament-and-the-lone-wolf-terrorist. 6 November 2014. live. dmy-all.
  20. Web site: Israel: Vehicle Attacks – A New Militant Tactic?. Stratfor Global Intelligence.
  21. News: Grabar. Henry. "Run Them Down". Slate.com. 14 August 2017.
  22. Web site: Hostile vehicle mitigation . National Protective Security Authority.
  23. News: Garfield. Simon. Terrorists are foiled at Glasgow airport. 7 November 2014. The Guardian. 7 December 2007. 7 November 2014. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20141107174910/http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2007/dec/23/features.magazine327. dmy-all.
  24. News: Glasgow airport ramps up use of bollards. 7 November 2014. Glasgow Evening Times. 22 December 2008. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20141107175646/http://www.securityinfowatch.com/news/10496575/glasgow-airport-ramps-up-use-of-bollards. 7 November 2014. dmy-all.
  25. News: Tait. Robert. Israeli woman, 25, and soldier killed in twin stabbing attacks – Incidents happen hours apart, suggesting an escalation of recent violence. 11 November 2014. The Daily Telegraph. 10 November 2014. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20141111025044/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11221592/Israeli-woman-25-and-soldier-killed-in-twin-stabbing-attacks.html. 11 November 2014. dmy-all.
  26. News: Halliday. Josh. Perraudin. Frances. What can be done to prevent Berlin-style attacks in modern cities?. The Guardian. 22 January 2017. 20 December 2016.
  27. Oakes. Charles. The Bollard: Crash- and Attack-Resistant Models. Whole Building Design Guide, National Institute of Building Sciences. 23 October 2014. 7 November 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141107170018/http://www.wbdg.org/resources/bollard_arm.php. 7 November 2014. live. dmy-all.
  28. Ernest B. Abbott and Otto J. Hetzel, "Homeland Security Begins at Home: Local Planning and Regulatory Review to Improve Security", in Rufus Calhoun Young, Jr. and Dwight H. Merriam, A Legal Guide to Homeland Security and Emergency Management for State and Local Governments, American Bar Association, 2006
  29. News: 3 January 2018 . New York to install 1,500 security barriers after vehicle attacks . BBC News . 22 April 2022.
  30. News: Do bollards offer protection against vehicle attacks?. 8 April 2018. DW. 8 March 2018.
  31. Web site: Vehicle Ramming Attacks - Are There Any Security Measures? - iHLS. iHLS News. Desk. 9 January 2017.
  32. Greenberg. Andy. Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It. WIRED. 22 January 2017.
  33. News: Hackers take control of car, drive it into a ditch. https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220811/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/hackers-remotely-carjack-jeep-from-10-miles-away-and-drive-it-into-ditch-10406554.html . 11 August 2022 . subscription . live. The Independent. 22 January 2017. 22 July 2015.
  34. News: New TTC security buses used as barricades at Remembrance Day services . 4 November 2023 . CIty News Everywhere . November 11, 2018.
  35. Web site: Olga Hepnarová: The Truck-Driving Mass Murderess Of Czechoslovakia. 12 May 2016.
  36. News: 640 Toronto on Twitter. Twitter. 2018-04-23. en.
  37. Web site: 'A huge loss': Yonge Street van attack victim Amaresh Tesfamariam missed 'every day'. 12 November 2021.

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