The 2016 New Year’s Eve Vehicle-Attack Attack in Berlin: Why a White Supremacy Event Happened?
A car drove into a group of people protesting at a white supremacist rally. One person was killed and more than 30 others were injured.
A truck mowed through a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 killing at least 12 people and wounding many more, in an incident the Islamic State took credit for.
Many of the perpetrators behind the wave of attacks in the region that happened in the year 2016 and are still happening today have no known ties to the Islamic State. In places where there has been no evidence of an attack, the group has claimed responsibility in an attempt to get more publicity.
Islamic terrorist groups have been calling for these types of attacks for over a decade. In 2016 the Islamic State began to encourage vehicle attacks in the U.S. and Europe, with instructions for its supporters to use to carry them out.
Vehicles provide an alternative to guns in most of the attacks that have taken place in Europe.
“Soft targets, such as areas in which civilians are enjoying themselves relaxing, are obviously easier targets because you can just drive right through,” she said.
In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security warned that terrorists who lack access to explosives or other weapons can carry out an attack with vehicle-ramming.
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. While a specific motive is still unclear, the FBI said the suspect was inspired by ISIS.
The senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said that terrorism has changed. “These low- to medium-impact or low- to medium-cost [ vehicle-based] attacks are more popularized than plane hijackings,” she said.
Source: Vehicular attacks are not new. But preventing them has been a big challenge
New Orleans Security Terrorism Prevention: Revisiting New Orleans Attacks in a City with Large Scale Vehicle Traffic, as Revisited
Reducing car dependency in dense cities, as well as using large vehicles in urban centers, is something Greg Shill, a law professor who studies transportation policy at the University of Iowa, thinks 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.
“We did have a car there, we had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around,” New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said Wednesday. We had a plan, but the terrorist defeated it.
“But I’m not aware of any U.S. cities that are seriously looking at measures to keep large vehicles out of the urban core,” he said. Even modest measures of pedestrianization tend to be opposed by students at an adjacent school for an hour or two.
In the autumn of 2015, the Islamic State called on its sympathizers to attack the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In the wake of the 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.
Bourbon Street was in the process of being repaired at the time of this week’s attack in New Orleans.
Source: Vehicular attacks are not new. But preventing them has been a big challenge
Investigation of the New Orleans Attack on New Year’s Day by a Man allegedly Driving a Truck Through the French Quarter and Using Smart Glasses to Record Video
Police say that even if functioning barriers were in place, the attack wouldn’t have been stopped as the man drove onto the sidewalk.
The man who is accused of attacking New Orleans on New Year’s Day had visited the city before, and used smart glasses to record video, according to the FBI.
“All investigative details and evidence that we have now still support that Jabbar acted alone here in New Orleans,” said FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia. “We have not seen any indications of an accomplice in the United States, but we are still looking into potential associates in the U.S. and outside of our borders.”
There were two trips taken in October and November. Myrthil claims that there was a man in the French Quarter wearing Ray-Ban glasses that could be used to record video and connect to his Facebook account.
The press conference on Sunday provided a more thorough account of the events leading up to the attack, when he allegedly drove a truck into a group of people.
FBI agents showed a video of the attack to the public. The transmitters contained in the truck were meant to cause the devices to explode, but they did not. 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 crashed at the end of the attack, Jabbar exited the vehicle and fired at police, wounding at least two officers, before he was fatally shot.
There are two guns that were recovered by the FBI, one of which was a 9mm pistol and the other a 308-caliber rifle. The rifle had a silencer, which it was bought at a private sale in Texas.
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.
The Loss of Edward Pettifer in the Bourbon and Canal Street Attaining an Unstable Black Hole in the Batched Louisiana Super Bowl
New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell said at a press conference that she was bringing in a tactical expert to assess security across the region. The Super Bowl is being hosted in the city next month. Police have used multiple vehicles and barricades to block traffic at Bourbon and Canal streets since the attack.
President Biden and his wife will be in New Orleans next week to grieve with the families of those who died in the disaster.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry also spoke at the start of the press conference, saying the innocent lives lost will never be forgotten. Landry has declared a period of mourning for the victims, beginning on Monday, with a different victim to be remembered each day.
On Saturday, the last of the 14 victims of the attack were identified: LaTasha Polk, a nursing assistant in her 40s, and a British man, Edward Pettifer. Pettifer was the stepson of a former nanny to the Royal Family, which led Prince William, son of King Charles, to express his shock and sadness at the death.
The coroner’s office said all the victims died from blunt force injuries. The oldest victim was 63 and the youngest 18 years old. Some people have been injured and some people have been hospitalized.