“After at least two explosions, gunmen who were waiting outside the mosque opened fire at worshipers as they fled Friday prayers,” cnn.com reports from Egypt. “The gunmen had set up ‘ambush’ locations and opened fire on ambulances as they were transporting wounded worshipers from al-Rawdah toward al-Arish before the arrival of security services.” Although we haven’t seen this style of terrorist attack here . . .
it’s only a matter of time.
Ambush attacks — where terrorist bombs/gunfire drive a crowd into a killing field (to “mop-up” survivors) — are terrorist SOP. Lest we forget, that was the Columbine killers’ original plan.
Again, there’s nothing original or innovative about this kind of attack. It’s the same technique that led to the extinction of the wooly mammoth in North America.
In fact, I’m surprised we haven’t seen this kind of one – two coordinated mass killing on American soil in the last decade or so.
What that means for you: do NOT think an attack is over after an initial assault. Do NOT run with a crowd of people towards an obvious exit without scanning for additional threats.
Consider an alternative route to safety. Move away from the crime scene after you escape.
Unless you can immediately engage your attacker, your only priority is getting out of the area of a terrorist attack. Anything else is just waiting to die.
Rule 1. Have a gun. Rule 2. Avoid target rich environments. Rule 3. Have a gun.
“There are two rules to remember if you want to have a good time. Rule number 1: never run out of Colt 45. Rule number 2: never forget rule number 1.” – Billy Dee Williams
Not talking about the malt liquor are you? Save that for afterwards and rely on your 1911 to carry the day.
That’s the bottom line for me too, JWM. I have never been comfortable in crowds, and am simply no longer willing to take those risks at all. Not the answer for everyone, obviously.
And a spare mag (two for single stack pistols).
I recall an incident at an abortion facility some time ago where the facility itself was bombed and then a second device detonated when the rescue personnel arrived.
Can’t remember any other details.
So it has, in fact, happened here, although on a one-off, limited scale.
Atlanta Clinic bombing, I believe. Eric Rudolf, the Olympic bomber was reportedly responsible. Those secondary devices were not effective, but point taken.
I’m not to sure about that Woolly Mammoth remark. Comparing people to animals is pretty offensive, even if they are Muslims.
The real question, in my mind, is how such an elaborate operation could be set up without anyone noticing. It wasn’t. Clearly they had a lot of inside help.
I have no doubt that every one of those attackers was known to the authorities long before this.
That’s the takeaway from this, in my opinion. How many future attackers in this country are already known to the authorities, who are unwilling, for a host of reasons, to go and “check them out”.
you could pull of such an ambush with as few as 2 people though 6-12 (enough for 2 good size fire teams) would be preferred. Place your charges, detonate, and then mop up the runners. Pretty standard infantry tactic to be honest. It’s a basic L shaped ambush.
One fire team sets up a line to the target’s anticipated direction of travel or 12 o clock.
The other team sets up on either flank.
The explosion drives the target(s) into the kill zone where they face withering fire on two fronts.
The 12 o clock front suppresses or halts their movement while the 3 or 9 o clock team assaults through the objective under covering fire from the 12 o clock element.
Although the comment was meant to illustrate that it was human hunters’ tactics that lead to the extinction of the mammoths, you are correct – comparing these savages to animals is wholly unfair to the animals.
Thanks for your open Islamophobia, its important for decent folks to see how the worst of President Gumps acolytes really feel.
Another expression of Islamophobia is this article illustrating a common widely used tactic by using the example of an attack perpetrated by Muslims as if Muslims somehow have a unique or special connection to this tactic.
An array of amoral killers in fact use this tactic notably the US military coward terrorists, most infamously in the “collateral murder” video of US helicopter gunners mowing down civilians and then firing a missile into the vehicle that comes to rescue them (a vehicle containing two small children). And this fills the US military coward terrorists with glee and they yuck it up, pridefully congratulating each other…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
This is the upside of having the openly xenophobic Islamophobic Sump in the White (Supremacist) House, now all you bigots no longer feel the need to hide your core values of parochial animus and ethnocentrism… now like the garbage in the above video you are brimming with hubris, thanks for parading your ignorance and hatred : D
That’s been a common M.O. for years… Insurgents have used it against our convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan I think I remember they also used it in attacks against rival groups and civilians as well during market bombings and such. I’m honestly surprised they haven’t used it here yet but it seems they can’t really get too large a group of “holy warriors” together in order to carry such an attack out for whatever reason.
We don’t have to worry since islam is the “religion of peace”
Here’s a question that we all may have asked ourselves.
A man in big jacket is standing in a starbucks and yells, “Allahu Akbra”
Is that, in and of itself, good cause to draw and fire. My guess is that the answer is no. That said, based on the actions of islamic terrorists, do we do it anyway and take our chances in court?
Given that suicide bombers tend to use a deadman switch to detonate (which discourages chickening out at the last minute), I’d be hauling ass or getting being something solid if I could. Shoot him, and he releases the detonator switch, and you and everyone else are toast. That’s one time where discretion is the better part of valor.
Deadman switch is just one method to deal with chickening out. And I haven’t heard of it being all that common, though data is hard to come by. Movies yes, real life, not so much maybe.
There’s also remote command detonated, and time detonated. Both of these relieve the bomber of the ability to chicken out – even if he’s told he has control of detonation, there’s always the possibility of remote detonation. I have heard of both of these, so I’d be more concerned with dropping a bomber and then having him go foom at some later point.
A very similar thing happened at the High School my daughters went to. Someone called in a bomb threat and the school was evacuated.
The bomb was in a van parked at the evacuation rally point. Fortunately, the detonation device failed.
I would equate that with yelling fire! in a movie theater
Church
The Islamic world is being convulsed by a fundamentalist revolution. That’s where the Islamic terrorists come from. Exactly why this happened is an interesting question but the hard fact is they think the path to their salvation is through killing us. We’re liable to be facing this scourge for well into the next century—unless they figure out how to kill us all and establish their caliphate. I agree that it’s just a matter of time before this kind of small-unit attack takes place in our country.
The growth of gun-ownership may very well turn out to be a countervailing force in such an attack. Terrorists are not dumb, our borders have been intentionally left open, and so it’s safe to assume they’re already here. Seeing what one guy can do to a rock concert’s crowd or another lone shooter can do to a little country church, tells the terrorists that 6 or 10 of their guys could do much, much more damage. But what happens when they attack an event where there are a number of armed and trained private citizens who are prepared to defend themselves is more than the stuff of movies. So far they’re chosen gun-free target areas. America is becoming a lot less gun-free.
“Terrorists are not dumb, our borders have been intentionally left open, and so it’s safe to assume they’re already here.”
There are some of those, no doubt.
The ones we will likely be *gutted* by were born here.
We’ve seen this in the attack on the Chattanooga, Tennessee military recruitment office.
The *children* of the Muslims who immigrated here, who were *radicalized* while they were here, growing up. The son or daughter of the nice guy down the street, who by luck and pluck and hard work got to America and built a life away from the sandbox Hell-hole they managed to escape from.
It’s their *children* that need to be watched for the lethal poison of radicalization…
Just my “tinfoil” two cent but some would speculate that this is the same type of tactic attempted in Las Vegas… The fuel tanks didn’t explode though…
I may or may not have a confidant in the FBI who mentioned the same potential method of attack.
A crowded mall full of Christmas shoppers. A non-descript van or SUV parked not far from an exit of 2, 3, 4 or more.
One dirtbag detonates a grenade inside. In terror, the people stampede out the exits.
The doors on the vans and SUVs open…
When a horrorshow like that eventually happens, what voices will be louder?
The sheep, or the sheepdogs?
Maybe this holiday season we need to give Santa a helping hand. Instead of tossing a few coins in the black kettle we all toss a few fresh battlepacks in our vehicle with our best hardware and go hang around the mall.
Poor bugger in the red suit probably feels like a bullseye these days as it is.
This type of attack isn’t that uncommon, see West Webster, NY attack. Smaller scale, same idea.
Hell, it’s what the Columbine kids planned, and would have worked if they weren’t terrible bombmakers.
To date, afaik, all of the terrorist attacks here, other than 9/11, involved no more than two actors. The greater the number of people involved, the higher the probability of authorities finding out. To gather 6-12 heavily armed militants, at least one of whom wishes to be the sacrificial goat, is a difficult proposition.