Attacks Like The One In London Are Easy To Organize, Hard To Prevent
While not a new tactic, vehicle attacks are cheap and within anybody’s reach
PARIS, March 22 (Reuters) - Militants are increasingly turning to vehicle-ramming attacks, like the one staged near Britain’s parliament on Wednesday, because they are cheap, easy to organize and hard to prevent.
Experts say the tactic of mowing people down avoids the need to obtain any explosives or weapons and can be carried out by a “lone-wolf” attacker without using a network of fellow militants - all lessening the risk of alerting security agencies.
“This kind of attack doesn’t need special preparation, it is very low-cost, within anybody’s reach,” said Sebastien Pietrasanta, a French Socialist lawmaker and terrorism expert.
Tags
Who is online
101 visitors
Five people were killed and at least 40 injured in London after a car plowed into pedestrians and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to parliament in what police called a “marauding terrorist attack.” The attacker was shot dead.
Trucks were used to devastating effect last year against crowds in Berlin and Nice, in contrast to more organized attacks that have already hit Paris and Madrid - as well as London in 2005 - using teams of bombers or gunmen.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for both the Nice attack last July, when a truck killed 86 people celebrating Bastille Day, and for the Berlin attack in December, when a truck smashed through a Christmas market, killing 12 people
Killing people is easy. That's horrible, but true.
The only way to live is to assimilate death by terrorism to death by lightning. Frighteningly random, but reassuringly rare.