"The use of trucks as a weapon [in of themselves] is a more recent scenario. Al Qaeda and ISIS have both exhorted their followers to use any means to bring death. With limited access to explosives, large vehicles into large crowds are an obvious event," he said. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 LONDON — Truck drivers who plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin and a crowd of pedestrians in Nice perpetrated exactly the kind of low-tech, vehicular attacks on soft targets that terrorism experts say are almost impossible to prevent. 
 
 The truck which plowed into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, FABRIZIO BENSCH / Reuters 
 
 Vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices are a well-established threat in Afghanistan and Iraq, where motorcycles and pick-ups laden with explosives are driven towards security checkpoints or convoys of soldiers. 
 
 But the European incidents underscore fears that the use of vehicles as weapons in themselves is a growing threat in the United States and elsewhere in the West. 
 
 “Vehicle ramming offers terrorists with limited access to explosives or weapons an opportunity to conduct a Homeland attack with minimal prior training or experience,” the Department of Homeland Security warned in 2010, urging vigilance against “attempts to infiltrate closed areas where traffic usually moves but where crowds are gathered, such as for street festivals or farmers’ markets". 
 
 "You can’t protect every event from an attack like this" 
 
 But aside from ever-greater intelligence gathering, experts say there is little that can be done to stop a determined attacker from "killing by car" in main streets or other busy areas. 
 
 “This is what authorities fear the most — a low-tech weapon than can be obtained by anyone and used at any time,” said Shiraz Maher, senior research fellow at the International Centre for Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) at Kings College, London. 
 
 “Anyone can prepare and carry out this kind of attack, you don’t need to take the risk of becoming part of a terror cell or traveling to Syria or anything like that," he added, speaking to NBC News in the wake of the Nice massacre. "There is no plot to be intercepted or plan to be thwarted. These attackers are already behind enemy lines, as ISIS sees it.” 
 
 Security was stepped up at busy spots in New York City on Monday night following the Berlin incident. 
 
 "Absent intelligence, the same way you can’t stop someone from shooting into a crowd, there isn’t a magic way to stop someone from driving into a crowd,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller told the New York Daily News in July. “What we seek to do is minimize that threat in pedestrian malls like Times Square, where you have the largest crowds". 
 
 Attacks like those in Berlin or Nice are easy to replicate. 
 
 Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Research Center foretold further attacks by truck in the wake of the one in Nice: "The high-impact/low-capability nature of the attack raises the risk of the repeated use of the tactic in France and allied countries in the coming months, as well as copycat attacks in the following days". 
 
 The Nice atrocity was at least the fourth politically or militant-inspired vehicular assault in France since 2014. Two attacks took place with motor vehicles in Dec. 2014 in the towns of Nantes and Dijon, killing one person and injuring more than 20. In January, an attacker rammed French soldiers who were guarding a mosque in Valence, although none were killed. 
 
 An ISIS video circulated in July called on followers around the world to run down Westerners, according to the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE). 
 
 “Fill your cars with gas…” the video instructs, according to ICSVE, showing images of an SUV driver preparing to run over crowds in Australia. 
 
 Al Qaeda's Inspire magazine suggested to militants in 2010 that "running over them with your cars and trucks" was a method of attack. And in 2014, ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed Al Adnan implored followers to kill disbelievers "in any manner or way, however it may be ... run him over with your car." 
 
 The threat comes not just from jihadis but anyone with a grievance and a car. Lakeisha Nicole Holloway was accused in December of killing one person and injuring dozens more by mowing down pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip, while Army veteran Shawn Nelson stole a tank and went on a rampage in San Diego in 1995 before a police officer shot and killed him. Last year, a man described by authorities as mentally ill killed three people by plowing his car into a crowd then stabbing passers-by in Graz, Austria. 
 
 Michael Leiter, counter-terrorism analyst for NBC News, said low-tech attacks were more difficult to thwart than conventional plots. “There is no doubt — and this is where ISIS has surpassed al Qaeda in its brilliant simplicity — this is much, much harder,” he said following the Nice attack. 
 
 Ramming of passers-by has been the modus operandi for Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians for some time, including when an excavator was used in a deadly attack on a bus in Jerusalem in 2014 and a stolen taxi smashed into a checkpoint near a Tel Aviv nightclub in 2011, injuring seven. 
 
 Authorities there installed metal bollards to protect sidewalks close to traffic lights and bus stops where pedestrians gather. 
 
 When a Jeep Cherokee laden with propane cylinders was driven into the check-in area at Scotland's Glasgow Airport in 2007, British authorities called for a rethink in the design of public spaces and “structural measures that prevent access to, or close proximity of, unscreened vehicles to the building or space … and measures that reduce the speed of vehicles … like bends or chicanes.” 
 
 So-called “hostile vehicle mitigation” has already seen airport approach roads rerouted away from terminal entrances, installation of concrete bollards on sidewalks and the introduction of checkpoints away from busy terminals. 
 
 Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy includes the creation of “safer places and buildings that are less vulnerable to terrorist attack and, should an attack take place, where people are better protected from its impact.” Older, unprotected terminal buildings, such as the check-in hall that was destroyed in the March 22 attack on Brussels airport, remain more vulnerable. 
 
 But while buildings and roads can be redesigned, it is much harder to protect soft targets such as crowds — a headache for organizers of public events such as fireworks displays, sports tournaments and festivals. 
 
 Relatively simple technology could provide a solution. A British firm says it has developed a system that can disable the engines of moving targets such as boats or cars by emitting radio frequency pulses that overload the sensors in a vehicle's electronic controls. For as long as it emits the pulses, the engine cannot be restarted. 
 
 Yet the covering public spaces with anti-terror measures could be counter-productive for governments and authorities. 
 
 “If you turn up to a family event and see barriers everywhere and bomb-proof glass or detector arches, you can create a culture of apprehension,” ICSR’s Maher said. “The reality is, you can’t protect every event from an attack like this.” ||||| The attack in Nice shows cars and trucks can be powerful weapons of terror. (Adam Taylor,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) 
 
 We often equate terror attacks with the use of firearms and explosives: legally prohibited objects whose sole purpose is to inflict harm or cause damage. Yet in Thursday night's attack in Nice, France, it appears that most of the 84 deaths at the scene were caused not by an automatic rifle or a bomb. 
 
 Instead it was a large white truck, careening through a Bastille Day crowd, that brought death, injuries and chaos. The truck had been rented on Monday from a branch of the Via Location rental agency, just outside of Nice, a woman at the agency said in a phone call on Friday. 
 
 French authorities have labeled the attack an act of terrorism, although the exact motivations of the truck's driver remain unclear and no group has claimed responsibility at the time of writing. For many who have been watching terrorism tactics over the past few years, if not decades, the use of a motor vehicle as a weapon to harm civilians is not a surprise. In fact, some might argue that they are more surprised that it took this long for a motor vehicle to be used in a major attack in the West. 
 
 One December 2010 briefing from the Department of Homeland Security had warned that vehicles could be "used to target locations where large numbers of people congregate, including sporting events, entertainment venues, or shopping centers" in the United States. The briefing noted that vehicles presented an option for attackers with "limited access to explosives or weapons" and "minimal prior training or experience." 
 
 Cars and other vehicles have been used as weapons for attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories by militants for years. As Matthew Henman, the head of IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center, notes in an e-mail, they aren't totally new in the West either. In France alone, there have been three attacks carried out by suspected Islamist militants that used vehicles as a weapon: In December 2014 there were vehicle related incidents in Dijon and Nantes, though authorities refrained from calling them terror attacks, and in January 2016 there was one in Valence. 
 
 There was also an attack using a vehicle in Montreal in October 2014, and an attack in London in May 2013 in which an off-duty soldier was initially attacked with a car. Going back further, in March 2006 a former student drove an SUV onto the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attempted to run over students and faculty. 
 
 In the past, most attacks with a car have been relatively small scale, however, often killing at most a handful of people and often less — in some cases, no one died at all other. In many ways, it seemed to be a last resort for terror groups unable to procure deadlier weapons. “It’s obviously an inferior tactic to bombings,” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told Slate in 2014. “In Israel, part of the reason you’re seeing it adopted is that the security barrier is fairly effective, which makes it hard to get bombs into the country.” 
 
 A large truck rammed into a crowd in Nice, France, during a celebration for the French national holiday. At least 84 people were killed and dozens more injured before the driver was shot by police. Here's what we know so far. (Jenny Starrs,Jason Aldag/The Washington Post) 
 
 The attack in Nice seems to represent a shift. "The use of a large truck in the attack, alongside the high death toll and deliberate targeting of a large crowd at an ideologically symbolic event represents an evolution in the use of the tactic and potentially indicates a higher level of operational planning," Henman writes. "Furthermore, the high-impact/low-capability nature of the attack raises the risk of the repeated use of the tactic in France and allied countries in the coming months, as well as copycat attacks in the following days." 
 
 It's worth noting that authorities have said they found guns and explosives in the van, though they later said that these were fake. The driver was armed with a pistol and shot at police before he was killed. The ownership of firearms faces strict legal restrictions in France, though smugglers exploiting Europe's open borders have created a thriving black market for guns. 
 
 At this stage, it's unclear if the attacker had any link at all to known terror organizations like the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, or whether he was even inspired by them. However, both groups have put out statements suggesting that motor vehicles could be used as a weapon in attacks on the West in recent years. SITE Intelligence group, an organization that monitors extremist groups, says that supporters of the Islamic State were "celebrating the massacre" in Nice on forums and social media. 
 
 That group has claimed responsibility for a number of recent attacks, including a gun and bomb attack in November that killed 130 people in Paris. In a number of recent public statements from the group, it has called on Western sympathizers to find unorthodox ways to strike soft targets. 
 
 In a September 2014 statement, Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani had specifically suggested using a car to attack Americans and Europeans. “Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him." Adnani said in the statement, singling out "the spiteful and filthy French" as targets. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 After Nice attack, officials warn that terror threats will stalk for ‘a long time’ 
 
 A ‘big white truck’ in Nice, ‘crushing over people.’ Then chaos, ‘bodies, limbs and blood.’ 
 
 How the Islamic State exploits America’s mass shooting problem
– Authorities are hoping Thursday's attack in Nice, France, doesn't lead to a wave of similar vehicular attacks that are both easy to pull off and incredibly difficult to prevent. Back in 2010, the Department of Homeland Security warned of terrorists using vehicles to kill civilians at "sporting events, entertainment venues, or shopping centers," the Washington Post reports. "Vehicle ramming offers terrorists with limited access to explosives or weapons an opportunity to conduct a Homeland attack with minimal prior training or experience," NBC News quotes the department as saying. One expert says this method of attack not only can be done by anyone at any time, but they won't need to first tip their hand by traveling to Syria, contacting other terrorists, or anything like that. “Al-Qaeda and ISIS have both exhorted their followers to use any means to bring death," a counterterrorism expert tells the Los Angeles Times. "With limited access to explosives, large vehicles into large crowds are an obvious event.” In fact, both groups have recently suggested using vehicles as weapons. It's a method that can be extremely deadly even when used unintentionally, as shown in 2003 when an elderly man killed 10 people by accidentally driving through a California farmers market. But the attack in Nice, which killed 84, represents a new level of carnage for vehicular assault. Three similar attacks in France between 2014 and 2016 killed only one person total.