New Transportation Security Administration report warns that truck owners and truck rental agencies in the U.S. must be “vigilant” about the increasing frequency of “ramming attacks” by terrorists using vehicles as killing machines.
The unclassified report entitled “Vehicle ramming attacks: Threat landscape, indicators and counter measures” warns owners, operators and rental agencies to protect their vehicles from theft.
The report was sent to local law enforcement agencies and private companies working with the Department of Homeland Security. The report notes that in the past three years, at least 173 people have been killed and more than 700 wounded in 17 ramming attacks around the world.
But a large number of them were carried out in the past 10 months including one in the U.S. where an Ohio State University student drove into a crowd.
The report noted that “No community, large or small, rural or urban, is immune to attacks of this kind by organized or ‘lone wolf’ terrorists.”