Attack on New Orleans | How did vehicles become weapons?

The alleged attack in New Orleans is the latest event in a decades-long series of vehicle attacks on crowds. Vehicle ramming is not originally a terrorist tactic, but it is frequently used by extremist organizations and radicalized individuals to kill, injure, and instill fear, using some of life’s most mundane objects. modern.

Why are vehicles used as weapons?

Cars and trucks are ubiquitous, especially in developed countries, and can easily be transformed into deadly weapons.

Attackers with “limited access to explosives or weapons” can use vehicles to cause serious damage “with minimal training or experience,” according to an FBI document titled “Terrorist Use of Vehicle Ramming Tactics.” by terrorists using vehicle ramming tactics).

Vehicle ramming attacks transform “a mundane, everyday object into a lethal, semi-strategic weapon,” researchers Vincent Miller and Keith Hayward wrote in a study published in 2019 in The British Journal of Criminology. This tactic gives “fringe actors” the opportunity to “strike at the heart of urban centers and sow fear throughout society,” they add.

After potential targets such as airports and public buildings became more secure, particularly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, some terrorists and other attackers began using vehicles against more vulnerable targets, such as groups of people gathering in public spaces.

What is the history of these attacks?

The use of vehicles to indiscriminately attack people has a long history, most often unrelated to organized terrorism, such as the 22-year-old Czechoslovakian who killed eight people in 1973 citing her grievances against society.

Terrorist groups began using vehicle-ramming attacks in the 1990s, according to a study by the Mineta Transportation Institute, part of San Jose State University. The majority of the 184 car bombings carried out between 1963 and mid-2019, when the study was published, took place in Israel and the West Bank.

Islamic groups: In an article published in 2010 in his magazine InspiredAl-Qaeda encouraged its adherents to use vehicles to “mow down the enemies of Allah.” But the tactic was not really adopted by would-be terrorists until several years later, when the Islamic State armed group began publicly calling for vehicle attacks.

New York : In 2017, a man drove a pickup truck into a crowded bike path along the Hudson River in Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring at least 11 before being shot and killed by police. Notes found near the scene indicated the killer’s allegiance to the Islamic State group, authorities said.

Israel and the West Bank: The use of vehicles as weapons has become common, with dozens of attacks carried out by Palestinians against Israeli soldiers and civilians in recent decades. This tactic gained momentum in the 2010s, during a wave of attacks carried out by Palestinian “lone wolves” who were generally not affiliated with organized armed groups.

Nice, France: More than 80 people were killed and hundreds injured when a man drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd of spectators watching National Day fireworks in the south of France. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack; investigators said the driver had self-radicalized by watching jihadist videos, with nothing to directly link him to the terrorist group.

Charlottesville, Virginia: A man drove his car into a crowd of people protesting a white supremacist rally, killing one woman and injuring nearly 40 others. He was convicted of first degree murder.

Protests after the death of George Floyd: According to Ari E. Weil, deputy research director at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago, during the civil rights protests following the death of George Floyd, killed by Minneapolis police in 2020, there were at least 66 vehicle attacks on protesters. It was sometimes difficult to determine whether the attacks were spontaneous or premeditated.

China: In November, 35 people were killed after a man drove a vehicle into crowds at a sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai. A week later, another man drove his car into a group of people near a primary school in the central city of Changde, injuring several students.

Christmas markets in Germany: In 2016, a man killed 12 people when he drove a truck into a crowd in central Berlin. In December, a man drove into a crowd in the eastern city of Magdeburg, killing at least five people, including a 9-year-old child.

How to stop attacks?

As vehicle attacks have become more common, police and security forces have attempted to make public spaces harder to hit targets, installing barriers such as bollards – short, sturdy posts designed to stop a car or a truck before it hits a crowd or a building.

In 2018, New York City announced it would install 1,500 metal bollards at some of the city’s most visited locations and place large planters at other vulnerable locations, after two high-profile vehicle attacks. previous year. But recent events have shown how difficult it can be to completely eliminate the threat.

Germany began increasing security measures around its seasonal Christmas markets after the 2016 attack in Berlin. But the Magdeburg attacker escaped protective measures and charged into a crowded market, injuring hundreds of people in addition to those who were killed.

“The problem in the most recent case is that the perpetrator took an ambulance lane,” said Nicolas Stockhammer, a professor of security studies at Danube University in Krems, Austria. “He approached the area from a side where there was no protection. »

The City of New Orleans was improving security bollards along a section of Bourbon Street in the area where the attack occurred, according to its website. The city’s police director said at a press conference that the perpetrator “circumvented the barriers” to carry out his attack.

This article was published in the New York Times.

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