NYC Jihadi truck-attack kills 8; wounds 15

The world famous “Aloha Snackbar” opened a Manhattan franchise yesterday when an Uzbek immigrant, Sayfullo Saipov, plowed a rented Home Depot truck though dozens of people on a NYC bike path. His 17-block rampage killed 8 and wounded another 15. The pig-screwing waste of life was arrested after being shot by police.

Check out the Daily Mail’s coverage of the attack for the latest. In breaking stories like these Daily Mail does a good job of streaming updates in a single updating thread as information becomes available. The following is a sidebar from their coverage, and documents some significant vehicular attacks in the past couple of years.

From Daily Mail:

HOW TERRORISTS HAVE USED TRUCKS TO MURDER HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE IN A MATTER OF MONTHS

Today’s terror attack in New York is chillingly similar to a spate of killings in Europe in recent months where vehicles were used.

It is believed six people were killed by a truck driver who mowed them down on a bike path in lower Manhattan.

The driver made his way from Houston Street down towards Tribeca where he mounted the bike path on the West Side Highway shortly after 3pm.

After striking several cyclists and runners, he came to a stop when his truck crashed into a school bus beneath the Tribeca bridge.

But it is not the first time a vehicle has been used to carry out mass murder in Western Europe with similar atrocities taking place in Britain, France , Germany, Spain and Stockholm and claiming well over 100 lives.

In August, Barcelona terrorist Younes Abouyaaqoub calmly walking away seconds after ploughing a van into crowds on the Ramblas murdering 14 people.

Abouqaaqoub was part of a 12-man cell who brought terror to Barcelona on August 17 and 18.

Hours after the Ramblas attack, five other members of the gang ploughed into pedestrians in the nearby seaside town of Cambrils before they went on the rampage with an axe and large knives, stabbing one person to death.

A driver has deliberately ploughed a van into pedestrians in Barcelona killing at least 13 and wounding dozens

On Bastille Day in the summer of last year, 86 people were killed when a truck was driven through crowds enjoying fireworks in Nice.

Low tech attacks using stolen and hired vehicles to randomly rammed into crowds, have been increasingly used by terrorists unable to get hold of guns and explosives.

In June a team of jihadists used a hire van to drive through pedestrians at London Bridge before going on the rampage with knives

‘Whether they are going to be permanent or temporary, time will tell. It is very difficult to stop, nigh on impossible.’

Before today’s attack there had been a series of atrocities using cars and trucks in 2016 and 2017.

In June a team of jihadists used a hire van to drive through pedestrians at London Bridge before going on the rampage with knives.

On March 22, Khalid Masood, 52, drove a Hyundai 4×4 over Westminster Bridge, mowing down members of the public before crashing into a fence beside Big Ben.

He then got out of the car and attacked PC Keith Palmer with a knife.

Masood was shot twice by police and died when he was taken to hospital.

Five people died in the attack, including PC Palmer.

In April, in central Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, a hijacked truck was deliberately driven into crowds before being crashed through a corner of a department store

The day after the Westminster attack, a man in Antwerp drove into a crowded shopping area in the Belgian city in an attempted attack, but no one was injured.

An ISIS-inspired massacre took place in Germany when a terrorist drove a truck through a Christmas market in Berlin. Twelve people were killed in the attack on December 19.

Anis Amri stole a cargo truck and killed 12 people when he drove through a Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz.

Among the dozen people killed was the original driver of the truck Lukasz Urban who was found dead with a gunshot wound in the passenger street.

An ISIS-inspired massacre took place in Germany when a terrorist drove a truck through a Christmas market in Berlin

Amri was a Tunisian who had failed to gain asylum status in the country. He was killed in Milan four days later after an international manhunt.

But the most deadly was the driver of a tractor-trailer who targeted Bastille Day revelers in the southern French city of Nice in July 2016.

On the evening of July 14, a 19-tonne cargo truck was driven into crowds on the Promenage des Anglais.

ISIS fanatic Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was behind the wheel and after exchanging gunfire with police, the Tunisian migrant was shot dead.

Thousands had gathered on the seafront to watch the fireworks that night. 86 of them died and 434 were injured.

While I am not one to mince words or obfuscate when it comes out to calling out an islamist attack as such, it is important to note that the choice of a vehicle as a tool of mass murder is not limited by ideology. Only 1 person was killed Charlottesville, Virgina incident, but the responsible individual was a white supremacist not a radical islamist.

On the other hand, the ideology, islamist or otherwise, is not limited in its choice of tool. In the San Bernadino and the Pulse Nightclub jihadi attacks guns were chosen. On 9/11 it was box-cutters and airplanes.