The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has released an unclassified report asking truckers to keep an eye out for terrorist activity on the highway.
The report, which was obtained by NBC news on Tuesday, May 2nd, states that the tendency for terrorists to use vehicles as weapons is on the rise and asks truck owners and operators to be “vigilant” about the increasing threat of “ramming attacks.”
“Commercial vehicles — distinguished by their large size, weight and carrying capacity — present an especially attractive mechanism for vehicle ramming attacks because of the ease with which they can penetrate security barriers and the large-scale damage they can inflict on people and infrastructure,” the TSA release said.
The report states that there have been 17 ramming attacks with 173 fatalities and 700 wounded around the world in the last 3 years. 9 of these 17 attacks have occurred in the last 10 months, one of which was the Ohio State University student who drove his car into a crowd last November.
Although most of the deaths reported occurred in only 2 attacks, one in Nice, France and one in Urumqi, Xingjang, a province of China, the report states that “no community, large or small, rural or urban, is immune to attacks of this kind by organized or ‘lone wolf’ terrorists.”
The spike in attacks utilizing vehicles as weapons seems to correlate with an ISIS leader’s September 2014 call to use any tools available to kill “infidels.”
Law enforcement agencies have begun scheduling and conducting regular visits to locations that rent out vehicles in an attempt to reduce the risk of “ramming” terrorism.
Truckers are being encouraged to report any vehicle theft and to report commercial vehicles with with “unusual and unexplained modifications” of any kind to authorities as quickly as possible.