Truck as terror weapon — a nightmare for security agencies

PARIS — Transforming a vehicle into a simple but deadly weapon of terror — as happened to such bloody ­effect in Nice on Thursday (July 14) — is a tactic well known to intelligence agencies.

In ­Israel and the Palestinian territories, car-ramming attacks have featured heavily in a wave of violence that has killed at least 215 Palestinians, 34 ­Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese since October last year.

“We’ve seen similar vehicle attacks by individual Palestinians against ­Israelis, which have gotten enormous attention in jihadi circles, and Al Qaeda has called for people to imitate them,” Mr Bruce Riedel, a security expert, told the Wall Street Journal.

“Adding an armed driver is more deadly,” added Mr Riedel, who spent 30 years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In 2010, Al Qaeda encouraged its recruits to use trucks as weapons. “The idea is to use a pickup truck as a mowing machine ... to mow down the enemies of Allah,” a leader of al-Qaeda wrote in its magazine, Inspire.

Thursday’s attack, in which a truck smashed into revellers celebrating France’s Bastille Day, killing at least 84 and injuring scores as it ploughed 2km through the crowd, highlights the challenge of how authorities can protect throngs of people.

This type of attack is far more difficult to prevent, say experts and ­officials, and any counter measures would cause great inconvenience to everyday life.

“What can you do against this?” Andre Jacob, former head of counter-terrorism at Belgium’s State Security service. “It’s impossible to prevent. Even if there were clues.”

The fact that the weapon of choice in Nice resembles tens of thousands of trucks on French roads also underlines the constant evolution of the terror threat and its unpredictability.

“We are now faced with a different modus operandi,” Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said in Brussels — where Islamic State militants staged attacks in March and where they planned last November’s Paris attacks. Mr Michel added that “zero risk does not exist”.

Western authorities have had to deal with three similar attacks in ­recent years: Two in Britain and ­another in Canada.

In May 2013, two Islamists smashed their car into British soldier Lee Rigby before attempting to behead him on a London street in broad daylight.

The pair, who were of Nigerian heritage, said they attacked the 25-year-old fusilier to avenge the deaths of Muslims at the hands of British troops.

Just 18 months later, a man claiming to be acting in the name of radical jihad ran over and killed Canadian soldier Patrice Vincent, also injuring a second man. Shortly after, the 25-year-old Muslim convert, Martin Couture-Rouleau, called the police emergency line to dedicate his attack to the cause of jihad.

France was also the scene of two car attacks in 2014, though in both cases the assailants had a history of mental illness, according to reports.

For several years, extremist groups such as Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda have exhorted followers via videos or messages to carry out such attacks ­using whatever comes to hand.

In September 2014, Abu Mohammed Adnani, an IS spokesman who Western intelligence agencies have dubbed the group’s “attacks minister”, issued chilling instructions that some have since apparently followed.

“If you cannot (detonate) a bomb or (fire) a bullet, arrange to meet alone with a French or an American infidel and bash his skull in with a rock, slaughter him with a knife, run him over with your car, throw him off a cliff, strangle him, or inject him with poison,” he said.

Al-Adnani said there was no need to “consult anyone” as all unbelievers are fair game: “It is immaterial if the infidel is a combatant or a civilian ... They are both enemies. The blood of both is permitted.”

Using a lorry as an instrument of terrorism shows how easy it is for those intent on killing the maximum number of people to achieve their nefarious ends, wrote the Daily Telegraph’s ­defence editor, Con Coughlin, in a commentary on Friday.

“The fact that a common criminal was able to hire a lorry and drive it through crowds of innocent revellers on Nice’s packed Promenade des Anglais illustrates both how easy it is for terrorist fanatics to commit mass murder, and how difficult it is for the security authorities both in France and elsewhere to prevent them from so doing,” he wrote. AGENCIES