VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACKS: GLOBAL DOMESTIC TERRORISTS LEARN FROM HAMAS

摘要

For most Americans, the first they heard of using a vehicle to attack and kill people was in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017 when a man drove his car into anti-white-supremacist protestors, killing Heather Heyer and wounding dozens of others. But Charlottesville was just the tail end of a movement that has killed people across the globe. For Europeans and those in the Middle East, vehicle ramming attacks (VRAs) is a familiar tactic. In fact, according to the Global Terrorism Database, vehicle borne attacks date to the 1970s but accelerated after Hamas's 2014 attacks against Israeli targets. It was quickly picked up by AI-Queda and Isis as a low-cost, high-profile method to terrorize civilians. It was then exported into Europe and now it is a key tactic used by domestic terrorists around the world.