Vehicle Borne Attacks in Barcelona with Jorge Morales Alvarez

This is the second in a short mini-series focusing on
vehicle-borne attacks having transitioned from a relatively rare
method used by Terrorist Vehicle-Borne (TVB) attacks to becoming
one of the most lethal forms of terrorism.





In Western countries, by 2016, TVB has resulted in just over half
of all terrorism-related deaths. Their effectiveness and
simplicity make vehicle ramming attacks an increasingly popular
option for lone individuals who are three times more likely to
stage a successful attack by groups of two or more. According to
the global terrorism index, 2024 saw an overall 63% increase in
terrorist attacks in the West, with terrorism conducted by lone
individuals sharply on the rise. So, how much have we learned
from the past the public report published in the United Kingdom
in 2013?





A 2022 systematic review focusing on lessons learned from terror
attacks from 2001 to 2018 found that despite the differences in
methods countries social and political systems and casualties
involved many of the lessons an issues identified with similar
however these lessons continue to repeat themselves time again it
concluded that the lessons identified did not appear to be
sufficiently acted upon the failure to learn was further
highlighted in volume 2 of the Manchester Arena public inquiry
which focused on the response by the emergency services it
identified the organisations involved in the response to the
incident had failed to capture or learn lessons from previous
multi-agency exercises it reported that there had been a failure
to learn embedded key lessons from exercises. This was most
relevant in the areas of shared situational awareness and joint
understanding of risk and co-location identified key lessons,
that subsequently reoccurred during the multi-agency response on
the night of the attack.





On the afternoon of August 17, 2017, Barcelona was subjected to a
vehicle terrorist attack, the 22-year-old assailant drove his van
some 550 metres along the famous La Rambla, killing 14 people and
injuring 125. We are 8 years on now from the attack. However, the
lessons identified and reflections taken from the emergency
service response are still as relevant today as they were at the
time. Today, we are joined by Doctor Jorge Morales Alvarez, the
Medical Director of the Catalan Medical Emergency System. To read
more about the attack, see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Barcelona_attacks





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