PERSPECTIVE: Vehicle rammingVehicle Ramming: The Evolution of a Terrorist Tactic Inside the U.S.
Vehicle ramming has been the weapon of choice among Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. Mia Bloom writes that it is now a weapon used with increasing frequency by white supremacists against racial justice protesters in the United States. Both tech companies and law enforcement need to do better if this escalating tactic is to be addressed before it causes more injury and death,” she writes.
Vehicle ramming is, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), when a perpetrator deliberately aims a motor vehicle at a target with the intent to inflict fatal injuries or cause significant property damage by striking with concussive force. Mia Bloom writes in Just Security that in response to racial justice protests triggered by the 25 May killing of George Floyd, white supremacists have been using vehicle ramming against protesters with increasing frequency.
She writes:
These recent incidents appear to be part of a worrying trend: In the United States, white supremacists and other emergent types of terrorists are using vehicle ramming with an increased enthusiasm. Ramming has, for example, been used by violent incels, with Alex Minassian driving a van down a busy downtown street in Toronto in 2018 and killing 10 pedestrians. The tactic gained traction among white nationalists after James Fields’ murder of Heather Heyer at Charlottesville. It remains that terrorist organizations have a finite number of tactical options available to them until they develop new technologies. Consequently, terrorist groups learn from one another and emulate each other’s tactics. Now, we are increasingly seeing extremist right-wing groups — called “White Racially Motivated” (or “WRM”) groups by DHS — using vehicles to attack civilians during protests in response to George Floyd’s death and other marches and demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. This tactical evolution is a microcosm of the broader tectonic shifts in today’s terrorism threats: just as vehicle ramming has migrated to right-wing and incel extremists, so, too, has the thrust of today’s terrorism threat, especially as these groups absorb more and more tactical learning from terrorists such as jihadists.
Bloom notes that vehicle ramming has been the weapon of choice among Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. Despite vast ideological differences among Palestinian terrorist groups, Salafi Jihadists, and right-wing extremists, their common choice to weaponize vehicles demonstrates how tactics, like a virus, move from one terrorist group to the next. Jacob Stoil of West Point’s Modern War Institute has rightly asked: “How can we understand the process by which an attack type popularized in the West Bank became the tactic of choice for white supremacists in the United States?”
Bloom adds that DHS and the FBI suggest being more vigilant in response to these escalating attacks. “But, rather than policing vehicle ramming, for example by creating better barriers to safeguard civilians protesters, law enforcement has used these incidents as an excuse to limit where protesters can legally march. Both tech companies and law enforcement need to do better if this escalating tactic is to be addressed before it causes more injury and death,” she writes.
