It has been a challenge trying to prevent vehicular attacks
New Evidence for an Islamic State Inspiral on a Motorcycle: The 2017 Charlottesville, Va, Attack and Another Truck Mowed Through a Christmas Market
In Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, a driver plowed into a crowd of people protesting a white supremacist rally. One person was killed and more than 30 others were injured.
In 2016, a truck mowed through a Christmas market in Berlin, leaving at least 12 dead and many more injured, in yet another incident in which the Islamic State took credit.
However, many of the assailants behind a wave of such attacks that occurred in the region in 2016 and 2017 had no known ties to ISIS. Even where authorities have found no evidence that ISIS directed an attack, the terrorist group has often claimed responsibility in an apparent effort to get publicity.
An Islamic extremist drove a pickup truck into a bike path in NYC, killing eight people. The New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner of intelligence said at the time that the perpetrator followed the ISIS guidelines “almost exactly to a T.”
Most of these attacks have taken place in Europe, where vehicles provide an alternative to firearms, which are more difficult to access relative to the U.S.
“These are areas in which people are relaxing and are easy to target,” she said.
Terrorists who lack access to explosives or other weapons can carry out an attack by vehicle- ramming, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.
The FBI said the man who intentionally drove a pickup truck into crowds on Bourbon Street early on New Year’s Day acted alone and that the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism. The suspect was inspired by the terrorist group, according to the FBI.
“Terrorism has changed,” said the senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Plane hijackings, such as the Sept. 11 attacks, have become less common, she said, while “these low- to medium-impact or low- to medium-cost [vehicle-based] attacks are kind of more popularized.”
Source: Vehicular attacks are not new. But preventing them has been a big challenge
New Orleans Security Terrorism Prevention after the Decay of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: Comment on Greg Shill
Greg Shill, a law professor who studies transportation policy at the University of Iowa, says that reducing car dependency in dense cities, including the use of large vehicles in urban centers, could help.
“A lot of times, where these bollards or barriers are sort of put in place and then forgotten about and never looked at again,” he said, “I am hearing from a lot of clients and a lot of partners that they have the need to revisit what they’ve done in the past.”
The New Orleans incident has prompted both public safety officials and private companies to go back to the drawing board, said Brian Stephens, a senior managing director with consultancy firm Teneo’s security risk advisory practice. He works with public and private businesses to come up with strategies to mitigate these types of security threats.
The New Orleans Police Department had a car, barriers, and officers there, and they still got around. “We did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it.”
He said that he wasn’t aware of any U.S. cities that were looking at measures to keep big vehicles out of the city. “Even modest measures tend to encounter pretty fierce opposition to pedestrianize a street for, you know, children at an adjacent school to play for an hour or two.”
After the Islamic State urged its supporters to attack the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2016, New York police deployed sand-filled sanitation trucks, bomb-sniffing dogs and other defenses along streets bordering the parade route.
Then, following the 2017 bike path attack, New York City announced a plan to install 1,500 bollards in some of the city’s most populated spaces as a way to block vehicles.
At the time of this week’s attack in New Orleans, bollards on Bourbon Street were in the process of being repaired in preparation for hosting the Super Bowl next month.
Source: Vehicular attacks are not new. But preventing them has been a big challenge
The New Year’s Attack on New Orleans Revealed: An FBI Search for a Man Who Had Spent a New Year in New Orleans
The attack wouldn’t have been stopped if barricades hadn’t been in place as the attacker drove up onto the sidewalk.
The FBI has revealed that the man who is suspected of attacking New Orleans on New Year’s Day was in the area before and used “smart glasses” to record video.
Myrthil also said Jabbar traveled to Cairo, Egypt, in 2023 and Ontario, Canada, in the summer of 2024, although it is not clear whether those trips were connected to the attack. Jabbar was a former U.S. Army soldier who became inspired by ISIS, according to investigators.
Both trips were taken in October and November. Myrthil also said Jabbar had ridden through the city’s French Quarter on a bicycle wearing smart glasses made by Ray-Ban that are capable of recording video and are connected to a user’s Facebook account.
The events leading up to the New Year’s Attacks on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street were laid out in the more detailed version of the press conference held on Sunday.
FBI agents showed video of Jabbar planting improvised bombs before the attack. The transmitters that were meant to cause the devices to explode did not happen, according to investigators. Two of the bombs were left in coolers, one of which was said to have been dragged around by unsuspecting revelers on New Year’s Eve.
After his truck crash, he got out and shot at police, wounding at least two of them, before he was killed.
Two semi-automatic guns, a 9mm pistol and a 308- caliber rifle, were recovered from the truck by the FBI. The rifle had a “privately-made silencer,” which was purchased during a private sale in Texas, investigators said.
On leaving the house he was staying in before the attack, Jabbar also set a small fire in a hallway, but the flames burned out before firefighters arrived, the FBI said.
Source: FBI says suspect in New Orleans attack twice visited the city to conduct surveillance
The New Orleans Mardi Gras Events, and the Stabbing of Edward Pettifer in the Second Hurricane Gustav Victims’ Reaction
Also at the press conference, New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city is working to improve safety, bringing in a tactical expert to assess security across the region. Mardi Gras parades begin Monday, and the city is hosting the Super Bowl next month. Police have used multiple vehicles and barricades to block traffic at Bourbon and Canal streets since the attack.
President Biden is going to New Orleans on Monday to grieve with the families of people who were killed in Hurricane Gustav.
The innocent lives lost will never be forgotten, said the Louisiana Gov. at the start of the press conference. There is a period of mourning for the victims which begins on Monday with a different victim remembered every day.
The last two victims of the attack were identified on Saturday, as LaTasha Polk, a nursing assistant, and Edward Pettifer, a British man. Prince William expressed his shock and sadness at the death of Pettifer, the stepson of a former nanny to the Royal Family.
The coroner’s office said there were blunt force injuries to all the victims. Most victims were in their 20s, with the youngest victim 18 years old and the oldest 63. About 30 people were injured, and 16 remained hospitalized as of Friday.
A man who rammed into a crowd of people on New Year’s Day in New Orleans,Louisiana had used “smart glasses to record a video”, the FBI said on Sunday. The man was in the area before and used “smart glasses” to record video, it added. He had also visited New Orleans twice to do surveillance, the FBI further said.