IS inspired lone wolves

The cutting edge of terrorism

Jamie Bartlett, head of the Violence and Extremism Program at London-based think tank Demos, believes that “the internet in the last few years has both increased the possibilities and the likelihood of lone-wolf terrorism.”

What are several reasons for terrorists for committing atrocities that they do? We could look at any number of justifications, but as law professor Stephen Holmes has observed, “private motivations cannot always be gleaned from public justifications.” Sometimes people commit acts of terror for the reasons such as a higher ideal or a perceived political wrong. But many times they do what they do for personal reasons that they will not publicly state; poverty, despair, anger, personal or directed at some larger entity. Sometimes, what they do is motivated by reasons that are too dark, shameful, or bizarre to be openly acknowledged. Sometimes people do things that have no moral excuse or compass, so they dehumanise their victims. Some perform evil acts unthinkingly under group or peer pressure, because it seems the ‘cool’ thing to do at the time, no matter how horrific it is.

Terrorism scholar John Horgan says: “The most valuable interviews I’ve conducted [with former terrorists] have been ones in which the interviewees conceded, ‘To be honest, I don’t really know,’” he writes. “Motivation is a very complicated issue. To explain why any of us does anything is a challenge.” This is a typical manifestation of the lone wolf terrorists, whose motivations are that much more difficult to understand, removed from the influence of physical proximity with the inspiring ideology that he or she is. Perhaps a more useful direction of interest is as suggested by Horgan; to dissect how the lone wolf got radicalised, through which networks, and how these were accessible to the lone wolf.

In fact, lone wolves are the cutting edge of terrorism, the idolised dream of al Qaeda ideologues like Abu Musab al Suri, who envisioned a leaderless world of jihad in which inspired young men from all over the world would join the ranks of ‘brothers’ without the need to join any organisation. They would simply swear allegiance to an ideology, and carry out attacks on their own. Marc Sageman’s work on western “leaderless” jihadists is also in the same vein, and he has interesting things to say about the causal relationships and social and kinship networks in the radicalisation process. The IS inspired lone wolves are perhaps the best examples of distant ideologies shaping perceptions from afar.

Alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIS) battlefield successes in northern Iraq, ISIS deployed a sophisticated social media strategy that is redefining its propaganda. Using twitterself-replicating bots and high definition videos of virulent young men cheerfully beheading civilians and buying Yazidi girls, IS has redefined jihadi messaging as we know it. As such, its proclivity to reach out to lone wolves who have been ‘cooking in their own indignation’ for reasons we may never know is quite remarkable.

In this context, a message from Abu Adnani, released in September 2014, the group’s chief spokesman is instructive: “Do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the [unbelievers]. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves. If you can kill a disbelieving American or European— especially the spiteful and filthy French— or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be.”

The message goes on to further elaborate upon the modalities that lone wolves may use in their exploits:” Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. Both of them are disbelievers… If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. 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… If you are unable to do so, then burn his home, car, or business. Or destroy his crops. If you are unable to do so, then spit in his face.”

The ramifications for such lone wolves heeding Adnani’s advice are clear. The Nice Truckdriver who caused such carnage with his vehicle is clearly an echo of the above message. But these was not the first wolf in Europe that did what he had to, using whatever they had. In May 2014 French citizen of Algerian descent named Mehdi Nemmouche shot and killed four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium before fleeing the scene. Shortly afterwards, a nineteen-year-old British citizen was arrested on a London street carrying a knife, a hammer, and the flag of ISIS, while in France two teenage girls— ages fifteen and seventeen— were arrested for planning to bomb a synagogue in Lyon. In September 2014, Australian police arrested fifteen people in a series of police raids to prevent a plot to randomly behead Australian citizens and wrap their bodies in the ISIS flag for public display. Many of these attacks had the IS inspired lone wolf branding.

It did not stop here. A few days after Adnani’s message to lone wolves all over the world, an eighteen-year-old stabbed two Australian police officers. Shortly after, 20-25 year-old martin couture-rouleau drove a car into two Canadian soldiers in Quebec, and then jumped out of the vehicle with a large knife. Another Canadian, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed a soldier at a war memorial in Ottawa, Ontario — storming the legislature, while during the same month 32 year old American, Zale Thompson, attacked two New York City policemen on patrol with a hatchet.

ISIS took credit for these attacks: “All these attacks were the direct result of [Adnani’s] call to action, and they highlight what a deadly tinder box is fizzing just beneath the surface of every western country, waiting to explode into violent action at any moment given the right conditions”. EUROPOL researchers looked into the lone wolf phenomenon in Europe, including the Nice lorry massacre. They concluded that although Islamic State claimed responsibility for the brutal assassinations, none of them “seem to have been planned, logistically supported, or executed directly by ISIS.”

Jamie Bartlett, head of the Violence and Extremism Program at London-based think tank Demos, believes that “the internet in the last few years has both increased the possibilities and the likelihood of lone-wolf terrorism.” It has made it simpler for one individual to learn about radical ideologies as well as acquire skills like bomb-making, lowering the barrier to participation in a broader, global network of extremism: “Terrorists usually operate within a group, even if only a very small group, but it’s far easier now to be able to go it entirely alone.”

While lone wolves may not pose the same kind of threat as mass attacks like 9/11, these attacks have a profound effect in terms of the psychological impact on a society, creating tension, polarisation and terror in societies. Since even a very limited act of violence has the capacity to create terror, lone wolf terrorists represent a different challenge altogether for western authorities from the terrorist cell plotting spectacular attacks, because lone wolves are even harder to detect, and even harder to diagnose when they would be radicalised.

The writer is a retired inspector general of police, Punjab, and ex head of Pakistan’s national counter terrorism authority.