The Vancouver car attack is all too familiar

A man named Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder after 11 people were killed and many more were injured in a car ramming in Vancouver, Canada. He allegedly drove his SUV into a crowd gathered for a festival celebrating Filipino culture. The police say the suspect has no connections to international terror groups such as Isis or al-Qaeda. The suspect’s motive is so far unknown.

Ramming attacks are common because most adults have a car parked outside their home. The 22 March 2017 terror attack on Westminster involved a van striking a crowd of pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four. The driver then got out of the van and continued killing. He was armed with knives, and stabbed PC Keith Palmer, who was protecting the Palace of Westminster, to death. Just weeks later on 3 June 2017, terrorists drove a vehicle through a crowd on London Bridge, hitting dozens, and then with ceramic knives tied to their hands attacked passers-by indiscriminately near Borough Market.

A similar attack — both ramming and stabbing, was committed in Melbourne, Australia, in 2017. Other ramming attacks across Europe have included the 2025 attack in Mannheim, when a car was driven into a crowd of people. The 2024 Magdeburg car attack killed six and injured hundreds. In 2016, a Christmas market in Berlin was attacked by the driver of a truck, who killed 13 and injured dozens. He had, it emerged, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

This is a small sample of many attacks of this kind. Why do they happen? In part, because the tools are close to hand. Islamist terrorist organisations have advocated using cars and vans and pickup trucks as weapons informally for decades. In 2010, the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire produced a formal guide on how to commit acts of terror using a vehicle. In 2014, the Isis propagandist Abu Muhammad al-Adnani told adherents to ‘smash [the crusader’s] head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car.’

More dangerous these days, it seems, is the lone attacker. Not necessarily linked to Isis or other terrorist groups. Not motivated by a grand design. Very little going on in his head but a form of homicidal thought. Willing to kill others for reasons of his own, and turning whatever happens to be parked outside into a weapon, an instrument of mass murder.