Vehicle-ramming attack

"Vehicle ramming" redirects here. For the theft tactic, see Ram-raiding.

Damage caused by the 2008 Jerusalem bulldozer attack that killed 3 victims and the attacker

A vehicle-ramming attack is a form of attack in which a perpetrator deliberately rams a motor vehicle into a building, crowd of people, or another vehicle. While terrorism is one motive, many similar mass casualty traffic incidents have other or unclear motives or causes. Vehicles can also be used by attackers to breach a building with locked gates, before detonating explosives, as in the Saint-Quentin-Fallavier attack.

21st-century increase

The 21st century has seen a rise in vehicle ramming attacks carried out as acts of terrorism by individuals committed to an ideology. In 2014, Canadian columnist Andrew Coyne describes the phenomenon as a form of "micro-terrorism", and argues that Canadians "had better get used to... the baffling phenomenon of the homegrown terrorist ... who for whatever reason takes it into his head to kill any number of his fellow citizens in the service of his cause."

Causes propelling the rise of the tactic

According to the American 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." Counterterrorism researcher Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for the 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 jihadis to choose "pedestrian only" locations and make sure to gain speed before ramming their vehicles into the crowd in order to "achieve maximum carnage".

Vehicle attacks can be carried out by lone-wolf terrorists who are inspired by an ideology, but who are not actually working within a specific political movement or group. 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. Watts says that Anwar al-Awlaki, the American born al-Qaeda imam, as a key figure in this shift, addressing English-speakers in their own language and urging them to "Do your own terrorism and stay in place."

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. 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 sort of saving grace in the ignorance and incompetence of most lone wolf terrorists, who often manage to murder very few people.

Protective measures

Security measures taken to protect the Houses of Parliament in London, UK. These heavy blocks of concrete are designed to prevent a car bomb or other device being rammed into the building.

Concrete blocks in the city centre of Dresden during the 2016 German Unity Day Celebrations

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.

Security bollards are credited with minimizing damage and casualties in the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack. Security bollards are credited 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. Berlin's police chief, Klaus Kandt, argued that bollards would not have prevented the 2016 Berlin attack and that needed security measures would be "varied, complex, and far from a panacea".

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 hackers remotely carjacked a Jeep from 10 miles away and drove it into a ditch. Measures for cybersecurity of automobiles to prevent such are often criticized as to being insufficient.

List of vehicle-ramming attacks

Terrorism

2017 attack in Stockholm, Sweden

In chronological order:

• 1981 Iraqi embassy bombing, Beirut-Lebanon not ramming pedestrians (ramming a specific building then exploding)
• 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, Lebanon (building ramming + exploding)
• [[9/11] 2001, United States
• 2001 Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly car bombing (building gate ramming + exploding + gunfire)
• 2002 Lyon car attack, France (building ramming + fire)
• 2006 UNC SUV attack, University of North Carolina, United States (ramming people)
• 2007 Glasgow International Airport attack, Scotland (building ramming + detonating gas cylinders)
• 2008 Jerusalem vehicular attack, Israel (ramming people)
• 2008 Jerusalem bulldozer attack, Israel (ramming people)
• 2011 Tel Aviv nightclub attack, Israel (ramming + stabbing)
• Murder of Lee Rigby, London, May 2013 (ramming + stabbing)
• 2013 Tiananmen Square attack, China (ramming people + bursting into flames)
• May 2014 Ürümqi attack, China (ramming + throwing bombs off the vehicle)
• 2014 Jerusalem tractor attack, Israel (ramming people + bus)
• 2014 Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu ramming attack, Canada (ramming)
• October 2014 Jerusalem vehicular attack, Israel (ramming people)
• November 2014 Jerusalem vehicular attack, Israel (ramming + hitting with a metal crowbar)
• 2014 Alon Shvut stabbing attack, West Bank (failed ramming + stabbing)
• 2014 Dijon attack, France (ramming people)
• 2014 Nantes attack, France (ramming people)
• 2015 Saint-Quentin-Fallavier attack, France (ramming gas cylinders + decapitating)
• 2016 Nice attack, France (ramming people + gunfire)
• 2016 Ohio State University attack, United States (ramming + stabbing)
• 2016 Berlin attack, Germany (ramming people)
• 2017 Jerusalem truck attack, Israel (ramming people)
• 2017 Westminster attack, United Kingdom (ramming + stabbing; some victims were thrown off Westminster Bridge by the ramming)
• 2017 Stockholm attack, Sweden (ramming people)

Other

• 1973 Olga Hepnarová case, Czechoslovakian woman using a truck to go on a rampage
• 1984 The terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger drives a truck and tries to eliminate certain people.
• 1995 Shawn Nelson case, plumber using a stolen tank to go on a rampage
• 2004 Marvin Heemeyer case, welder using an armored bulldozer to destroy buildings
• 2006 San Francisco SUV rampage, 2006 case of a paranoid schizophrenic man from Afghanistan using an SUV to go on a rampage
• 2008 Akihabara massacre, mass murder using a truck and a dagger
• 2009 attack on the Dutch Royal Family, case of a man driving into spectators on Koninginnedag 2009 in Apeldoorn, Netherlands
• 2010 Hebei tractor rampage, 2010 mass murder using a bucket loader
• 2013 Venice, Los Angeles
• 2015 Graz van attack, mass murder using an SUV and a knife
• 2015 Las Vegas Strip road rage
• 2016 Scunthorpe road rage
• 2017 Melbourne car attack in Melbourne, Australia in which six people were killed and over 30 injured.
• 2017 Balneário Camboriú road rage
• 2017 Heidelberg, Germany incident
• 2017 Krewe of Endymion incident
• 2017 Antwerp attack, failed car-ramming in Belgium

See also

• Ram-raiding
• Hit and run
• Vehicular homicide
• Mass murder
• Stabbing as a terrorist tactic