Lone wolf (terrorism)

This article is about Lone wolf terrorism. For other uses, see Lone Wolf (disambiguation).

A lone wolf or lone-wolf fighter is someone who commits violent acts in support of some group, movement, or ideology, but does so alone, outside of any command structure.

Origins of the term

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the term "lone wolf" was popularized by white supremacists Alex Curtis and Tom Metzger in the late 1990s:

"I have nothing to say" – which he urged extremists to use whenever questioned by police as a highly effective means of obstructing prosecution.

On Metzger: One of the most influential aspects of Metzger's right-wing activism has been his advocacy of the "lone wolf " or "leaderless resistance" model of extremism, which favors individual or small-cell underground activity, as opposed to above-ground membership organizations.

Current usage

The term "lone wolf" was subsequently adopted by US law enforcement agencies and by media to refer to individuals following this strategy. The FBI and San Diego Police operation to investigate Curtis' activities was named Operation Lone Wolf, "largely due to Curtis' encouragement of other white supremacists to follow what Curtis refers to as 'lone wolf' activism". Currently, the term "lone-wolf terrorism" now refers to violent acts that take place outside a command structure, regardless of ideology.

Usually, the lone-wolf terrorist shares an ideological or philosophical identification with an extremist group, but does not communicate with the group he or she identifies with. While the lone wolf's actions are motivated to advance the group's goal, the tactics and methods are conceived and directed solely by the lone wolf, without any outside command or direction. In many cases, as in the tactic as envisioned by Curtis, the lone wolf never even has any personal contact with a larger group. Because of this, lone-wolf terrorism poses a particular problem for counter-terrorism officials, as it is considerably more difficult to gather intelligence on lone-wolves, compared to conventional terrorists.

In the United States, lone-wolves may present a greater threat than organized groups. According to the Christian Science Monitor, "With the exception of the attacks on the World Trade Center ... the major terrorists attacks in the United States have been perpetrated by individuals who were sympathetic to a larger cause – from Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (and accomplice Terry Nichols, and possibly accomplice John Doe 2) to the Washington area sniper John Allen Muhammad".

Relatedly, anti-abortion militants The Army of God use "leaderless resistance" as its organizing principle.

List of lone wolf terrorism

Lone wolves in Asia

• On 24 February 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a former member of the Jewish Defence League and follower of the Kahanist movement, opened fire inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, killing 29 people and injuring at least 100.
• On March 19, 2005, Egyptian national Omar Ahmad Abdullah Ali detonated a car bomb outside a theatre filled with Westerners in Doha, Qatar, killing a British director and injuring 12 others. Police believe he was acting alone.
• On 4 August 2005, Eden Natan-Zada, another alleged Kahanist, killed four Israeli Arabs on a bus and wounded 12 before being killed by other passengers. Natan-Zada was a 19-year-old soldier who had deserted his unit after he refused to remove settlers from the Gaza Strip. Less than two weeks later, on 17 August 2005, Asher Weisgan, a 40-year old Israeli bus-driver, shot and killed four Palestinians and injured two others in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh.
• Nabil Ahmad Jaoura, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, opened fire on tourists at the Roman Amphitheatre in Amman, Jordan, on September 4, 2006. One British tourist died and six others, including five tourists, were injured. Police said he was not connected with any organized group but was angered by Western and Israeli actions in the Middle East.
• On 6 March 2008, Alaa Abu Dhein opened fire on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, killing eight and injuring 11 before he himself was shot to death. His family denied he was a member of any militant group, although they said he was intensely religious.
• On 2 July 2008, Husam Taysir Dwayat attacked several cars with a front-end loader. He killed three Israelis and injured dozens more before being shot to death. He was not a member of any militant group.
• In 19 August 2010, an individual Uighur was suspected in having planted a bicycle bomb that killed 7 people.
• In January 2011, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan was assassinated by a lone wolf, though supported by a larger base.

Lone wolves in Europe

• During late 1991 and early 1992, right-wing Swiss-German immigrant John Ausonius shot eleven dark-skinned people in Sweden, killing one.
• Between 1993 and 1997, Franz Fuchs, an Austrian, engaged in a campaign against foreigners and organizations and individuals whom he believed to be friendly to foreigners. He killed four people and injured 15, some of them seriously, using three improvised explosive devices and five waves of 25 mailbombs in total.
• In London in April 1999 David Copeland targeted blacks, Asians and gays with nail bombs, killing three and injuring 129 — his aim was to start a race war. He was sentenced to at least 50 years and is now in a secure mental hospital.
• In the Netherlands on 6 May 2002, nine days before the elections, Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered by Volkert van der Graaf, an environmental activist who declared he saw Pim Fortuyn as a threat to Dutch society.^{[citation needed]}
• On 2 March, 2011, Arid Uka shot and killed two United States soldiers and seriously wounded two others in the 2011 Frankfurt Airport shooting in Germany. German authorities suspected that this was an Islamist’s attack, which would make it the first deadly act of this kind in Germany.
• In Norway on July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in 2 consecutive attacks: First, he placed a heavy car-bomb in the heart of the Norwegian government headquarters in the center of the capital, Oslo. The blast killed 8 people. An hour later, he appeared at the summer camp of the Worker's Youth League, the youth organization of the Labour Party, at the island of Utoya, 35 kilometers west of Oslo. There were 500 people on the island. Impersonating a police officer, he shot for approximately 90 minutes, killing 69 young people. Breivik was arrested and confessed the killings. He is said to be a right-wing extremist example of a lone wolf terrorist. He describes himself as (commander of) a solo cell of, as he claims, the in 2002 refounded Knights Templar. He sent a manifesto to potential sympathizers, after which it appeared on internet (see also advantages for leaderless resistance).

Lone wolves in the United States

• Timothy McVeigh is often given as a classic example of the "lone wolf". Although Terry Nichols was convicted of conspiring with him, McVeigh planned the bombing and threatened Nichols with harm to himself and/or his family if he did not co-operate in helping him mix the fertilizer and other bomb ingredients. McVeigh was convicted and executed for the 19 April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people and injured hundreds with a truck bomb.
• Between 1978 and 1995, Theodore Kaczynski, known as the "Unabomber", engaged in a campaign of sending mail bombs to various people, killing three and wounding 23. He threatened to continue the bombings unless his anti-industrial manifesto was published by the New York Times, which acquiesced.
• Between 1996 and 1998, Eric Robert Rudolph, a Christian Identity adherent, engaged in a series of attacks against civilians in the Southern United States, resulting in the deaths of three people and injuries to at least 150 others. His targets included abortion clinics, gay nightclubs, and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
• On February 23, 1997, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal opened fire in the observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing one and wounding six others before committing suicide.
• On 10 August 1999, Buford O. Furrow, Jr., a member of the white supremacist group Aryan Nations, attacked a Jewish daycare in Los Angeles, injuring five, and subsequently shot dead a Filipino American mail carrier.
• On 4 July 2002, Egyptian-American terrorist Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened fire at an El Al ticket stand at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), killing two.
• On 3 March 2006, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove a Jeep Cherokee into a crowd of students at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, injuring nine people. Press accounts have said that he "matches the modern profile of the unaffiliated, lone-wolf terrorist"
• On 28 July 2006, Naveed Afzal Haq, saying "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel", perpetrated the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, killing one woman and wounding five other women.
• Anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder perpetrated the 31 May 2009 murder of obstetrician George Tiller.
• On 1 June 2009 Abdulhakim Mujahaid Muhammad, an American who had converted to Islam opened fire on a United States military recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, known as the 2009 Little Rock recruiting office shooting. He has been indicted on one count of capital murder in the death of Private William Long, and 15 counts of murder. Private Quinton Ezeagwula was also wounded in the attack. Preliminary investigation (as of 12 June 2009) indicated that Muhammad acted alone, though he later said he was acting on behalf of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
• On 10 June 2009 James von Brunn fired a weapon into the Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum, resulting in the death of security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns. James von Brunn died while awaiting trial.
• On 5 November 2009, Nidal Malik Hasan shot and killed 13 people in an attack at Fort Hood that wounded 30 others.
• February 18, 2010, Joseph Andrew Stack III flew a small personal plane into an office complex containing an IRS office in Austin, Texas after posting a manifesto on his website stating his anti-government motives and burning his house. One person other than Stack died; 13 were injured.

See also

• Clandestine cell system

External links

• Lone-Wolf terrorism, a case study by the European research consortium Transnational Terrorism, Security and the Rule of Law
• 'Lone Wolf' Attackers a New York Security Concern
• The Problem of the Lone-Wolf Terrorist
• Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004: "Lone Wolf" Amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act