Motoring Jihad: Vehicle Ramming Attacks

Chris Hernandez

Berlin, Germany. Nice, France. Ohio State University, USA. Westminster Bridge, London, UK. Stockholm, Sweden. Times Square, New York, USA*. And now London, UK.

Again.

Vehicle ramming attacks (VRAs) are becoming the preferred tactic of our jihadist terrorist enemy. Just like the IED threat in Iraq, something we didn’t anticipate but which seem completely predictable in hindsight, VRAs are the weapon sitting in plain sight for years that almost nobody thought to use until recently. They’re incredibly effective for a number of reasons, and we’re already far behind in our efforts to create effective countermeasures.

Aftermath of the Stockholm, Sweden truck attack

The most effective VRA to date occurred in Nice, France last year, and killed 86 people. The least effective was at the Ohio State University, which injured several but killed nobody. Last night’s attack in London, at last report, claimed seven lives and caused over three dozen injuries. We don’t yet know how many died from the ramming and how many from the following knife attack. Sweden’s VRA claimed five, Berlin’s attack claimed twelve, Westminster Bridge six, and Times Square one. That’s 117, including those stabbed by the attackers, in just the last eleven months. And that’s not counting dozens of vehicle attacks in Israel, like this one that killed four Israeli soldiers in January.

Or this one last year in Arizona (watch the whole thing):

If you were armed, could you have stopped that truck? If so, how? You could stand directly in front of it and mag dump into the windshield in front of the driver — shooting at it as it passes will likely have no effect, especially since you’d be shooting upward through the door. But you’d have only seconds to recognize the threat, draw, engage and get the hell out of the way. What’s the likelihood you’d be able to do all that and get a round through the windshield at the right spot, and have that round not lose so much mass and velocity as it goes through the windshield that it becomes ineffective? Maybe that’s not a one-in-a-billion shot, and maybe your response is “So you’re saying there’s a chance,” but I don’t have any realistic expectation that a concealed carrier could take out a truck like that.

You could also jump on the running board and fire through the side window. It’s what I like to think I’d try to do. But the Nice attacker was swerving, and going up to fifty miles per hour. A motorcycle rider said he rode next to the truck and climbed onto the running board before the driver pointed a gun at him, causing him to jump off. Another motorcycle rider reportedly tried to do the same thing but was run over and killed (there are conflicting reports and I’m not sure exactly what happened).

So it’s possible you could climb on the side and take a shot. But it’s also possible the driver himself is armed, like the Nice and Berlin attackers were, so you might get shot in the face and run over anyway. No matter what, using your weapon to stop a big truck like that wouldn’t be easy.

“Well, sure,” you might say. “That’s a big truck, and it would be hard to stop, but most ramming attacks would probably involve a regular car or pickup.” And you’re right, they probably would since regular passenger vehicles are easier to get. So watch this video from the Times Square VRA:

Same question: if you had been there and been armed, what could you have done?

The car was traveling much faster than the cargo truck in Nice. It doesn’t have as much material to deflect gunfire as the cargo truck, but it’s also much smaller and easier to miss. If you’d deliberately stand in front of that car you’re insane, especially since the car will keep moving even if you manage to kill the driver. If your first instinct would be to jump out of the way (and yes, that would be your first instinct) would you then open fire on that small and fast-moving car, in an area full of civilians?

No, I’m not saying there’s no way to stop vehicle attackers. But I am saying it’s pretty damn hard to stop a vehicle with a gun, as many Soldiers discovered during the War on Terror. I personally watched my gunner in Iraq shoot a suspected car bomb with an M2; the vehicle stopped, then started driving again when we were much farther away. If .50 caliber rounds into the hood didn’t stop a Toyota Corolla (I think that’s what it was), your Glock 19 probably won’t stop a VRA.

So what should you do in case a VRA happens in front of you? 

Zombieland already gave us Rule #1:

Cardio.

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Chris Hernandez (pictured above) is a 23 year police officer, former Marine and retired National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and has published three military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve, Line in the Valley and Safe From the War through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at [email protected] or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).

After the Benghazi attack and “Innocence of Muslims” video that didn’t spark it, Dr. Zahid Bukhari, President of the Islamic Circle of North America, wrote, “No practicing Muslim would advocate violence in any form in response to cartoons or films, no matter how offensive.” After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Piers Morgan wanted Muslims “To denounce [the attackers]  as non-Muslims, to urge REAL Muslims – the vast majority who loathe these extremists as much as we do – to rise up against them, alienate and marginalize them, root them out of their society.” Islamweb.net informs us, “if any Muslim kills an innocent person, that Muslim has committed a grave sin, and the action cannot be claimed to have been committed ‘in the name of Islam.'”

So apparently thousands of people who mistakenly think they’re Muslim have been shooting, beheading, burning, or blowing their enemies up lately. These non-Muslims-who-think-they’re-Muslims have killed over 50,000 people, mostly “real” Muslims, in the last two years. Somehow these people, most of whom were raised Muslim from birth, have misunderstood Islam so badly that they’re doing exactly the opposite of what Islam says.

See this terrorist? His name is Moner Mohammad Abusalha. Dr. Bukhara, Piers Morgan and others might think he’s not really Muslim, but in fact, he is. Or at least, he was. He blew himself up in a suicide attack on a restaurant in Syria.

He was Muslim because he believed in a certain type of Islam that’s existed for hundreds of years, and has been studied and validated by many religious scholars. Not every Muslim agrees with this version of Islam, but this guy did, and millions of other Muslims do.

You know how I know this guy was Muslim? He told us.

He didn’t care if you don’t think he was a “real” Muslim. He didn’t need your permission to call himself Muslim. He was positive he was Muslim, and he thought others Muslims who don’t massacre their enemies aren’t real Muslims. He was supported by millions of other Muslims who either directly armed, trained, fed and housed him, or gave tacit support to his actions. Whether or not you gave him the “real Muslim” stamp of approval made no difference to him. It probably never crossed his mind.

By the way, Abusalha grew up in a gated community in Florida, graduated from high school and spent some time in college. All suicide bombers are poor and uneducated? Yeah, not so much.

In the end, denying his or any other terrorist’s religious faith is meaningless. Because our opinion about their faith means nothing, either literally or philosophically.

We need to realize something: we don’t get to decide what makes a “real” Muslim. Nobody needs our approval to label himself any religion he wants. Two western Christians (or atheists, or agnostics like me, or Muslims, or whatever) can argue for years about what makes a true Muslim. Who cares what they think? Do Christians need approval from Afghan Muslims before calling themselves true Christians? Do Baptists need approval from Catholics?

The definition of true Islam has been debated at least since the Sunni/Shia split in the 7^th century. Sunnis and Shia have been killing each other for apostasy for 1400 years, and some Sunni extremists refer to Shia as  “rafidha (‘rejecters of the faith’) and majus (Zoroastrian or crypto-Persian)”. Other strains of Islam, like the Sufis, have risen and sometimes been brutally oppressed by more powerful Muslim sects. The “what is true Islam” debate has been violently raging among Muslims for over a thousand years; why does anyone, especially non-Muslims in the west with no real understanding of Islam, think they can smugly decide what a real Muslim is?

If I’m curious about an avowed jihadist’s religious affiliation, I might do something totally crazy: I’d ask him. Because, you know, he and his buddies are screaming to the world what their religious beliefs are.

I know, I know. Someone’s about to say it. Some people have probably been screaming it since the first paragraph. So go ahead and let it out.

Now that you’ve shocked us with that newsflash, guess what? We already know that. Of course all Muslims aren’t terrorists. If I believed all Muslims were terrorists I wouldn’t have lived, worked and socialized with them in Kosovo, served in combat beside them in Afghanistan, invited them into my home, or taken one to a range to improve his pistol skills. Most Muslims are nothing like ISIS, and would rather kill an ISIS fighter than join him. You literally have to be stupid to believe that every last Muslim is a terrorist, or condones terrorism.

But you have to be even stupider than that to think none of them are, or that it’s just a tiny handful. The suicide bomber threat isn’t over because the suicide bomber I mentioned earlier was the only one ever. ISIS isn’t a small organization, and it’s funded by many Muslims all over the world.

Even our government tacitly admits jihadists are Muslims. Our President might be loathe to use the term “Islamic terrorism” (his people apparently even censored French President Francois Hollande’s use of the term at a White House meeting), and politicians like Cory Booker might outright refuse to even say the words.

But if our elected representatives truly didn’t believe jihadists were Muslims, they wouldn’t have terrorists like Osama bin Laden buried according to Islamic law. The military wouldn’t have temporarily banned female guards at Guantanamo from offending a war crime suspect’s Islamic beliefs by touching him while moving him from the prison to legal appointments. And if the rest of the Muslim world didn’t believe those terrorists were real Muslims, Muslim scholars wouldn’t have complained that bin Laden’s burial at sea violated sharia law and warned that Muslims would attack Americans in retaliation. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)  wouldn’t have complained of guards at Guantanamo Bay force-feeding prisoners on hunger strikes during Ramadan. If nobody believed bin Laden or terrorists at Gitmo were real Muslims, why would our government, Muslim scholars and CAIR be so worried about offending their Islamic sensibilities?

Everyone knows not all Muslims are jihadists, but everyone with an understanding of reality knows jihadists are actually Muslims. So please, stop claiming you know what all real Muslims think. Nobody cares. At least, the Muslims who believe Islam commands them to slaughter people don’t. If you’re positive you know what “real” Islam is, find your nearest ISIS fighter and argue with him about it. Because wasting time trying to convince me that “real Muslims would never be terrorists” doesn’t stop your so-called fake Muslims from murdering people.

Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and Iron Mike magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve, Line in the Valley and Safe From the War through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at [email protected] or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).