Ramming attack in Australia not linked to terror?

The crashed vehicle used in the attack. Reuters. 

The driver in a ramming attack in Melbourne, Australia does not appear to have any links to any terrorist groups. Reuters. 19 people were injured as the driver rammed into pedestrians with 12 still in the hospital. The attacker is a 32 year old from Afghanistan. Police claim that he was hearing voices but they also admit that he said that the treatment of Muslims motivated his crime. The attack also occurred near the site of another vehicle attack in Melbourne last January that killed 4 people and wounded 20. That too was not ruled a terror attack. 

My Comment:

The ruling that this was not a terror attack is dubious at best and a deliberate lie at worst. The suspect admitted to political motives for this attack, the treatment of Muslims, so by definition this was a terror attack. That doesn't change if the suspect doesn't have a direct link to ISIS or any other terror group. That just means it is "lone wolf" terrorism, not organized. 

It alsodoesn't matter at all that the man may have been mentally ill. If you hear the voice of God, or whoever, telling you to kill for political reasons, you are still dong it for political reasons! Being mentally ill does not change the motivation of the attack if he is admitting he did it for political reasons. If he said he did it because everyone was actually an alien in a skin suit and he needed to stop them from taking over the world, that would be something. But he's saying he did it because of the treatment of Muslims. That makes it terrorism, even if the voices in his head egged him on. It doesn't matter if he was radicalized through propaganda or through his own illness, he was still radicalized. 

So why not just admit that this was a terror attack? My guess is it is for political reasons. Australia, like most western countries, doesn't want to admit that there could be a problem with letting in Muslim immigrants. Though the Australian immigration system is tougher than most they still have 2.6% of their population made up of Muslims, a number that is increasing. 

If the attack is because of mental illness Australia gets to avoid the implications of a terror attack. Instead of debating immigration people can instead talk about better mental health and other such distractions. It lets them avoid the elephant in the room. 

And, of course, even if he was mentally ill, he appears to be an Afghan immigrant. The Reuters article was unclear about if he was an immigrant, a citizen or a tourist but it doesn't really matter. It also doesn't really matter what his motivation was, the fact of the matter is that if he wasn't allowed into the country in the first place he wouldn't have been there to commit the attack. 

This bears all the hallmarks of an ISIS inspired attack, even if there are no direct links to the organization itself. The attacker mimicked the strategy that has been used so often lately of taking a vehicle and ramming it into pedestrians. Such attacks are so common now that they are becoming less noteworthy, but it is undeniable that the Nice attack, committed by ISIS, was what proved the concept. It has spawned many copycat attacks including this one. Not all of those attacks were committed by ISIS members, and indeed some were not even committed by Muslims, but it's clear that the attacker was using a tactic spawned by them.  

I also have to point out that I don't believe that the target was an coincidence either. It was very close to the same location of the last major attack in Australia, which was another ramming attack that was ruled to be non-terror related. I'm guessing this attack chose this target because of that fact. 

It appears that Melbourne had taken some steps to eliminate these kinds of attacks by deploying traffic bollards that would wreck a vehicle doing one of these attacks. I've seen these in other places, including in person in Las Vegas last spring. This attack shows the limitations of those defenses. The attacker simply chose a site that didn't have any. Bollards can help but they aren't a perfect answer to this kind of threat. 

We are lucky that nobody has died so far in this incident. The SUV that the attacker used looked heavy enough to do some damage but it seems that the lighter the vehicle is the fewer deaths there will be. Nice was such an effective attack because it used a full sized truck and trailer, giving civilians little chance of survival if they got hit. Getting hit by a big SUV isn't much better but you do have a decent chance of making it through if you can get medical attention. 

Finally, I have to point out that this attack comes on the eve of the holiday season in the west. Christmas is right around the corner and ISIS and other terror groups like to strike this time of year. New Years is also coming quickly and is a prime target for any attacker. Let's hope this holiday season ends up a safe one, but it pays to be vigilant...