Vehicular terrorism: Driving under the influence of terror

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BY AMBASSADOR BAYANI V. MANGIBIN (Ret.)
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Sunday, November 19, 2017
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IN THE PAST, deaths and injuries involving car accidents due to driving under the influence of liquor have been a source of concern. The incident is described as accident. It is unintentional and unexpected due to alcohol intoxication leading to loss of control of the driver’s faculties or behavior.

Today, there is more complication and danger. An increasing number of cases of deaths and injuries involving vehicular mishaps have been attributed to driving under the influence of terror. The incidents are not accidents. They are done with intent and expected to happen due to ideological intoxication. This is the type of intoxication that controls man’s faculties or behavior to revert back to the Hobbesian “brute situation of a state of nature (the war of all against all).” This modern day Leviathan known as “vehicular terrorism” creates an atmosphere of “continual fear and danger of violent death.”

According to a study of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), 17 reported vehicle ramming attacks worldwide have been carried out by terrorists from 2014 to 2017 resulting in 173 deaths and 667 injuries. The present number of cases and victims might not appear to be alarming in scale but the trauma behind the numbers and the uncertainty of an increasing trend evoke terror and insecurity of what the future will be.

It was not a coincidence that vehicular terror attacks increased in number with the precipitous decrease in power of ISIS in 2016. It can be considered rather as a consequence of the said decline. It should be noted that ISIS’ strategic response to prop up its fading role in the global terror theatre is to encourage its followers to conduct more military engagements (terror activities) under ISIS trademark of violence.

The effective cooperation of the United Nations and its member countries to prevent the terrorists from acquiring weapons (with UN Security Council Resolution 2370 adopted in August 2017 as one example) has made it extremely difficult for terrorists to obtain weapons to conduct massive attacks. Thus, ISIS shifted to adopt an easy-to-execute terror attacks without the use of the traditional weapons of terrorism.

As the deceased ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani stated, “If you are not able to find an IED (improvised explosive device) or a bullet, then… smash the head (of the unbeliever) with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car.” This started ISIS to promote vehicular terrorism.

Vehicles can be easily acquired. Mujahidin can drive car, van or truck even without a driver’s license. Driving said vehicles does not arouse suspicion as vehicles are supposed to be considered as means of transport not means of blood sport. The ISIS has transformed vehicles from boon to bane – from being useful to “something causing misery or death”.

ISIS has encouraged aggressively its followers to conduct vehicle attacks. In its online magazine Rumiyah, Issue 3 on November 11, 2016 under the title “Just Terror Tactics-Part 2,” ISIS published the following gory details of the method of vehicle attack: “a vehicle is plunged at a high speed into a large congregation of kuffar (unbeliever), smashing their bodies with the vehicle’s strong outer frame, while advancing forward – crushing their heads, torsos, and limbs under the vehicle’s wheels and chassis – and leaving behind a trail of carnage.”

As manifestation of desperation,  ISIS has emphasized that the mujahidin should demonstrate allegiance to the Caliph by writing on dozens of sheets of paper “The Islamic State will remain” or “I am a Soldier of the Islamic State” prior and, spreading these papers from the vehicle’s window, during the execution of the attack. .As a sign of duplicity and urge for publicity, there were several occasions when ISIS made false claim on a terror incident as perpetuated by the Soldier of Islamic State even if the perpetrator did not make any written notes.

The lethality of the vehicle attack and the difficulty of preventing its occurrence make vehicular terrorism a new model tool of spreading terror with the present inability to acquire more powerful weaponry. These terror attacks have enabled ISIS to gain enormous publicity. From this perspective, as indicated in the Foreword of the latest issue of Rumiyah (Sept. 9, 2017), it is anticipated that ISIS “will escalate these attacks to a greater level in the coming period.”

The latest truck attack in New York City on Oct. 31, 2017 confirmed this point: expect more future vehicular “attacks to a greater level”. The other point creates more apprehension:  the New York Police Department (NYPD), one of the most professional, best trained, and well-resourced police departments in the world, was not able to prevent or at least mitigate the effects of its occurrence.

While vehicular terrorism might still be a remote possibility in the Philippines, it is now high time to prepare or start undertaking Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) measures before someone drives under the influence of terror. (ambaniman@gmail.com/PN)
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