Vehicle-ramming attack

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." 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." 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". 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. A 2014 propaganda video by ISIL encouraged French sympathizers to use cars to run down civilians. 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. 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." 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. Experts see a saving grace in the ignorance and incompetence of most lone-wolf terrorists, who often manage to murder very few people. In the 2017 Charlottesville car attack, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. rammed into counter-protestors during the Unite the Right rally, killing one woman and injuring 35 others. ==Protective measures==

planters provide protection similar to that of bollards. Washington, DC. in London, United Kingdom. These heavy blocks of concrete are designed to prevent a car bomb or other device being rammed into the building. during the 2016 German Unity Day Celebrations installed on London Bridge to prevent attacks 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. Security bollards are credited with minimizing damage and casualties in the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack, 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. 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". 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". The American Bar Association recommends bollards as effective protection against car-ramming attacks. 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. Münster has been planning to install security bollards in public areas in response to vehicle-ramming attacks in European cities, including the Berlin attack. 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. Modern Internet-connected drive-by-wire cars can potentially be hacked remotely and used for such attacks. In 2015, to demonstrate the severity of this type of attack, hackers remotely carjacked a Jeep from 10 miles away and drove it into a ditch. 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. ==List of attacks==