Lone Wolf Terrorism and National Security - Research Paper Example

 Lone wolf terrorism and National Security Introduction The threat of terrorism of a lone wolf in America has a base on a number of terrorist events that the government believes were carried out by one person. Thirteen people were murdered at Fort Hood, Texas, in November after a shooting. The shooting led to charges against a psychiatrist who had allegedly transformed into an Islamic extremist (Simon, 2013). In June, the same year, an Islamic militant shot at Little Rock’s army recruiting center, killing one person and wounding another. Later that month, an old man who has a fascination for Nazism sprayed bullets into a Washington, D.C. Museum. A security officer died in that incidence. In early 2010, a protestor flew a plane into an office of IRS in Austin, Texas, injuring 13 bystanders and killing himself. 2009’S Christmas Day attempt to fell a jetliner using a bomb and a 2000 failed car bombing in Times Square were allegedly done by one person. In addition, the following incidents were connected to a single person, a 2010 effort to bomb New York's subway lines, a plot in 2010 to blow up the residence of former president George W. Bush in Dallas, the shooting of Congresswoman for Arizona, and some of her followers in Tucson, and an attempt by a bomber to blow himself up in 2012 inside the building. The episodes have created serious concern at the top of the political order, and the apparent threat of unrelated terrorism has prompted crucial changes in requirements for hindering its occurrence, which include the beginning of a “lone wolf provision”. The provision was introduced into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of America. About lone wolf The phrase ‘lone wolf’ was made popular in the 1990s by white supremacists Alex Curtis and Tom Metzger in order to encourage other racists to take action alone for security reasons when performing violent crimes. Other phrases used to depict similar types of political violence are ‘leaderless resistance’, ‘freelance terrorism’ and ‘individual terrorism’. In modern days, the media and US law enforcement agencies use the term "lone wolf" to refer to people undertaking brutal terrorism acts outside an authority structure. The lone wolf operates to advance the philosophical or ideological faiths of an extremist group (Michael, 2012). The lone wolf's methods and tactics are directed on their own. In many cases, a lone wolf never has contact with any group they have links with. It is, therefore, harder for counterterrorism officers to assemble intelligence on these terrorists, since they may lack the opportunity to come near a counter-terrorist surveillance. In the U.S, lone-wolves present a significant threat than other criminal groups. Some of the infamous examples in Israel, United States, and Europe comprise Baruch Goldstein, Australian Franz Fuchs, American Nidal Malik Hassan, Mathematician Theodore Kacynski, Yigal Amir and Volkert van der Graaf. Goldstein was an American-born Israeli who was accountable for the loss of 29 Muslims who were praying in a Cave in Hebron. The Austrian Fuchs used letter bombs to murder four people and injure another 15. A US army major Hassan allegedly shot at Fort Hood, 13 people died from the incidence while 30 other wounded. The American mathematician Kaczynski participated in a mail bombing where 3 people died while 23 persons were left wounded. Additionally, there have been assassinations of politicians by lone wolves. Yigal Amir assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, a former Prime Minister of Israel. Volkert van der Graaf killed a Dutch politician, Pim Fortuijn. The above individuals and their acts of violence exemplify the disparities in aiming and technique within the terrorism of wolf, and the variety of ideological and political backgrounds of the executors. Anarchist revolutionaries, environmental and animal rights extremists, religious zealots, jihadists, and white supremacists all have been involved in lone wolf attacks. When religious backgrounds are concerned, one may see some motivations. Those who claim or justify these acts for the sake of religion are people of all faiths and background. Lone wolves like Hassan and Abdulhakim Muhammad, and anti-Semitic-identity adherents such as Buford Furrow are increasing in the country. Others were Rudolph Erick, also called the Olympic Park Bomber, who killed two persons and injured about 150 other people. Lone wolf terrorism comprises radical Roman Catholics such as James Kopp and Protestant Scott Roeder. Scott murdered a physician who carried out abortions (Gürbüz, 2013). There is no profile that describes lone wolf. One can distinguish between groups of lone wolf terrorists, according to ideology or religious background. Additionally, there are other common features shared by lone wolves. One of the main problems for both academics and counterterrorism practitioners is the few numbers of terrorists who act on their own without an order or connections to the organization. Lone wolf terrorism and national security With the Arab in a continuous turmoil, terrorist groups are likely to recruit more people for their organizations. Many a times, their recruits are people unknown to leaders and commanders of the terrorists, but a big threat in many countries particularly the United States and Europe. Terrorism is now the most visible threat to the national security. In the arena of international terrorism, in the next five years, it is highly believed that the number of state-sponsored terrorist organizations may go down, but private terrorist groups will go up sharply (Kouri, 2011). It is widely believed that terrorist groups will cooperate with each other to achieve preferred ends against perceived enemies. The alliances may have a limited duration, but the “loose associations” will dispute nations’ ability to identify the threats. Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, together with their affiliates are the most noticeable threat in the next five years. This is according to security expert Mike Snopes, who served as a police commander of New York. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) foresees that sub-national groups and NGOs will big players in world affairs in the years to come, presenting other “asymmetric” threats to the U.S, based on a report which is with the National Association of Chiefs of Police (Kouri, 2011). Even though the United States will maintain occupying the economic and political leadership positions, criminal enterprises, terrorist groups, and other actors will take a big part in international affairs. Nations and their governments will have a decreasing control over information flow, services, people, resources, and technology. The single most domestic terrorism threat in the next 5 years will be “lone wolf” terrorist. They draw ideological encouragement from formal terrorist groups, but work on the environs of the movements. In spite of their informal nature and limited resources, they are able to build up high-profile, destructive attacks, and their plan of operation is difficult to detect. A good example is the lone gunman who entered a Seattle’s Jewish center and killed a woman while wounding 5 other people. Advancement in technology provides terrorists an opportunity to be ahead of law enforcement measures. For instance, it is easier and cheaper for individuals and small groups to obtain chemical or biological warfare agents, and becoming more difficult for experts of forensic to identify an agent to a particular country, group, or company. In this century, with the accessibility of international telecommunications, neither terrorism nor crime confines itself in a territory. Neither terrorists, nor criminals restrict themselves, conforming to the structure of laws, entirely to a bad act or another. Instead, the groups join alliances of chance as they arise. Terrorists involve themselves in committing crimes, and criminals assist terrorists. In modern days, threats cross political and geographical boundaries with impunity. The terrorism groups do not fall into a single group of law (Kouri, 2011). Lone wolf terrorism is associated with resistance movements and conventional terrorists and mass murderers because of what prompts the lone wolf. Leaderless resistance is an activism that represents lone wolf terrorism since it is motivated by ideologies and politics. White supremacist Louis Beam, advocated leaderless resistance in 1992. Leadership resistance refers to the formation of autonomous groups led by ideology rather than their leaders’ directions and membership organizations. In contrast, the lone wolf need motivation in order to devise a plan, make preparations, and execute their attack while working in a small group or alone and without assistance, direction, or instruction from an organization that a person sympathizes with. Although lone wolves, just like serial killers, can commit various crimes over time. Lone wolves endeavor for mass murder for ideological or political reasons. Serial killers kill to realize a base need. Lone wolf terrorism is the same as the mentioned group and may receive motivation to act like these groups because of anger towards something or someone. Lone wolves undertake to commit murders of many people for ideological or political reasons in an attempt to force or intimidate an authority to change its policies. They also want to make a point that will receive the attention of the government. Radical Islamists used the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as a motivating factor and justification for committing terrorist acts in the US since it will receive the attention of the American government and its people (McCauley, Moskalenko & Van Son, 2013). It is argued that lone terrorists can easily have a reasonably modest effect on society in comparison to large terrorist groups. The organizational resources and competence of terrorist groups make them tougher than lone individuals. Even though this emerges as the truth, it is evident that the lone wolf can bring fear. Researchers have said that lone-wolf groups of terrorists can easily be dangerous and that if they get access to complicated technologies, their actions may be enormously destructive. In addition, researchers concur that these terrorists are harder to detect and create some challenges for anti-terrorism agencies. In the modern age, the National security has become a critical issue considered by individual and nations. A person, lacking any leadership or organizational structure to make him/her easy to locate, has the ability to do unbelievable harm in many ways. Bombs are now more powerful and smaller than ever before. People can manufacture and acquire biological and chemical weapons surprising easily through the help of the internet. Electronic storage of data and money makes the world highly vulnerable to hacker attacks. Individual, lone wolf terrorists are not just a big threat, they are elusive too (Gruenewald, Chermak & Freilich, 2013). Their capacity to vanish into a population, they lack organizational contacts that may expose their intentions, makes them impossible to recognize before the attack happens and hard to track afterwards. For them to communicate, the internet is a safe haven for them with its electronic back alleys and unregulated vendors of information and material. Lone wolf terrorism takes up different methods and causes, but the general thread between them seems to be the exploit of the internet for related needs. Mentally troubled lone wolves create problems since they have an exceedingly contracted focus of interest and may not be distracted to an easier goal by security measures. There are, however, some exceptions. For example, Furrow did surveillance on some Jewish targets and avoided some of them since he saw their security to be too rigid. Franklin diverted from his earlier target of the Rev. Jesse Jackson to Jordan after he discovered that Jackson's security was too robust for his aims. Lone wolves who are mentally disturbed have a disregard for the outcomes of their actions, and express no concern about running away after they attack, as demonstrated by John Hinckley, who did not try to escape after attempting to murder President Ronald Reagan, 1981. As the case of Virginia Tech shooter Cho and shooter George Hennard, the assailant will commit suicide. In circumstances where lone wolves choose to flee and conduct attacks, their nature which is unknown and isolation complicates the circumstances for law enforcers, especially if they make efforts to hide their identities and reduce the level of evidence they leave behind. For instance, Franklin could operate for 3 years before he was recognized and arrested since he spaced the attacks geographically and in terms of time, and he changed his weapons, vehicles, and appearance. The full length of his actions came to the realization of the authorities after he was arrested and he confessed. Rudolph traveled distances between targets and attempted to change his appearance. Lone wolves have become a nightmare situation for counterterrorism agencies in most parts of the world, especially the United States and United Kingdom. Nations are confronted with a major conundrum: how can one stop an assassin when his/her name, target and timings of attack remain unknown? The problem is compounded in that some lone wolves are everyday people, who have never committed a crime before, leave alone an attack of the nature of terror. Since the profile of some of these lone wolves is radicalized male Islamist, many analysts and general citizens argue that agencies such as the FBI and UK's equivalent, MI5, must focus their endeavors on identification and monitoring people who undergo the radicalization process (Pantucci, 2011). Although radicalized persons cannot be arrested just for having anti-libertarian viewpoint, the surveillance teams can pounce on them the moment they take up a gun and go into a crowded place. Aside from the big logistical effort required to put many angry men on 24/7 surveillance, an exercise that would require security services to increase their budgets and the number of staff, the tactic may be counterproductive. Many angry young people radicalized or not, just talk, but lack the courage to carry out the terror attacks. This is explained by the fact that, deep in their hearts, they are conscious of right and wrong and do not want to be troubled. Putting these citizens into an awkward position where the state seems to be telling them that they appear to be "criminals" and therefore, being watched, produce a feeling that the state is victimizing them. Comparing it to recent happenings, it has been seen in the West that victimization of law-abiding black people can easily lead to violent backlashes that the police could have avoided (Spaaij, 2010). Lone wolf faces operational constraints in executing their attacks. They are easily hindered by the cycle of terrorist attack. Since they work alone, they must conduct each step by themselves. They are susceptible to detection at different junctures in their process of planning for attacks. The most critical is the surveillance level of the operation. Although different websites and manuals of military give instructions on doing violence, which includes making bombs, there is a lack of substitute for practical experience in a real situation. Because of the difficulties, many terrorists will have to get out of their vacuum. It makes them vulnerable to people or surveillance before they can perform an attack. The vulnerability occurs as terrorists seek the materials or skills required to perform a terrorist attack. The question of how well to deal with lone wolf terrorism is not clear. The answers to this question concerning the modus operandi of the terrorists and radicalization processes are groundwork ones that need further investigation. With the increase of lone wolf terrorism, some new questions come up, for example about the rise of the issue of “leaderless jihad”, the result of the Internet and the effect of attacks by lone wolves on nations and Muslim communities, Islamist groups in particular. Can there be an inspiration or a contamination effect of lone-wolf terrorism? Is there a link between measures of counterterrorism against terrorist networks and the increase in propaganda to take action without getting instructions? Since there are few cases we can learn from, it makes it hard a task to comprehend the “how” of terrorism. Sharing experiences, ideas, and data regarding the terrorist threat between policy makers, practitioners, and academics is important to find some answers to unanswered questions. Conclusion Lone wolf terrorism has become a major threat to the national security of the United States and other countries. The rise of the internet has even made it easy for the terrorists since they are in a position to acquire information concerning terrorism. Much need to be done to combat the actions of these terrorist groups. References Gruenewald, J., Chermak, S., & Freilich, J. D. (2013). Distinguishing “loner” attacks from other domestic extremist violence. Criminology & Public Policy, 12(1), 65-91. Gürbüz, U. (2013). Capacity building in the fight against terrorism. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Kouri, J. (2011). Lone Wolf Terrorist Threat Increasing, Say Security Experts. Retrieved on April 28, 2014 from http://www.aim.org/guest-column/lone-wolf-terrorist-threat- increasing-say-security-experts/ McCauley, C., Moskalenko, S., & Van Son, B. (2013). Characteristics of lone-wolf violent offenders: A comparison of assassins and school attackers. Perspectives on Terrorism, 7(1). Michael, G. (2012). Lone wolf terror and the rise of leaderless resistance. Nashville: Vanderbilt University P Caruso, R. & Locatelli, A. (2014). Understanding terrorism: a socio- economic perspective. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing. ress. Pantucci, R. (2011). A typology of lone wolves: preliminary analysis of lone Islamist terrorists. International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. Simon, J. (2013). Lone wolf terrorism: understanding the growing threat. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books. Spaaij, R. (2010). The enigma of lone wolf terrorism: an assessment. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 33(9), 854-870. Read More