NBC News is reporting the lowdown from a new Transportation Safety Administration report titled “Vehicle Ramming Attacks: Threat Landscape, Indicators, and Countermeasures,” which warns truck owners and those who routinely rent large vehicles to take added precautions against theft of the vehicles. The TSA report warns these parties to stay “vigilant” and points out the increased use of trucks in “ramming attacks” as a reason for everyone to review safety procedures and anti-theft precautions. Hopefully, this will prevent such a tragedy from happening on U.S. soil.
According to NBC News, the report says that “No community, large or small, rural or urban, is immune to attacks of this kind by organized or ‘lone wolf’ terrorists.” Further, attacks are most likely to occur places where “large numbers of people congregate, including parades and other celebratory gatherings, sporting events, entertainment venues, or shopping centers.” Those who own commercial vehicles should be especially careful:
“Commercial vehicles — distinguished by their large size, weight, and carrying capacity — present an especially attractive mechanism for vehicle ramming attacks because of the ease with which they can penetrate security barriers and the large-scale damage they can inflict on people and infrastructure.”
The report also makes mention of the various instances large vehicles have been used in terrorist acts, including the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, which left 87 people dead, along with a 2014 attack in Urumqi, China that killed 43. In total, the report attributes at least 173 deaths and 800 injuries that are down to 17 ramming attacks, nine of which have been carried out within the last ten months alone.
(Via NBC News)