The Myth of the Lone Wolf Terrorist

[Dale00]

Contrary to the Obama administration narrative, all of our home-grown muslim terrorists had help, support and encouragement from friends, family and/or religious figures. They were not lone-wolves who "self-radicalized."

...Obama’s “rogue” homegrown Muslim terrorist is a myth. In virtually every case, the terrorist suspect’s radicalization spokes off into family, local mosques and the larger Muslim community. Family and friends knew they were radicalized. And in some cases, they even helped them pull off their evil plots. The shock and denials from relatives and clergy are for the most part for public consumption.

In fact, suspects in all but a handful of the roughly 90 ISIS terror cases prosecuted in America since 2014 were part of a group of up to 10 co-conspirators who met in person to discuss their plans or who made contact via text messaging or e-mail, Reuters found in a recent review of Justice Department case files. Only 11 percent of cases involved a terrorist acting entirely alone. “Wolf dens, not lone wolves, [are] the norm in US Islamic State plots,” the wire service concluded, further casting doubt on the official White House line.

“The relationships between accused co-conspirators range from casual acquaintances to lifelong friends, from married couples to cousins and from roommates to college buddies,” said the report, which did not examine connections in the Orlando attack. In virtually every case, the co-conspirators attended the same mosques. In fact, mosques are the connective tissue in all these attacks and plots.

“As you can see, the bad apple doesn’t fall far from the terror tree.”

The president is desperately trying to disconnect these dots, but the hard truth is there’s a much broader network of support for these so-called “lone wolf” terrorists within their Muslim families and the larger Muslim community than the public is being told.

“If there’s anyone out there who thinks we’re confused about who our enemies are,” Obama lectured Americans last week in a post-Orlando speech, “that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists who we’ve taken off the battlefield.”

What he still doesn’t get is, “the enemies” aren’t just terrorists overseas but terrorists at home — along with their friends and relatives — and “the battlefield” is in our own communities. Until we grasp that shocking reality, we won’t be able to stop this cancer from spreading deeper into our own back yards.

See the article for details on the Orlando, Boston, Chattanooga and San Bernardino terrorists and their influencers. http://nypost.com/2016/06/18/why-the-lone-wolf-terrorist-is-a-myth/

 

[mugsy]

You're definition is unreasonable - do you expect a "lone wolf" to have never heard of terrorism? To have never heard of possible ways to prosecute attacks? To the extent he has heard it was likely, at least in part, from other people. The idea of the lone wolf is that he is neither an integral part of some larger organization nor a directed "sub-contractor" if you will, i.e. his specific actions and plans are not known or directed by some larger or higher-level organization or command structure (before they happen). You are almost certainly right that he was radicalized over time partly through various contacts - after all lone wolves are not assumed to have invented radical Islam independently and in parallel with each other. However, that alone doesn't make him an organized or directed terrorist - the lone wolf concept still can apply.

 

[Dale00]

The "lone wolf" narrative pushed by the current administration is that one person on their own latches onto crazy ideas from overseas sources and so is radicalized with absolutely no support from local muslims. The terrorist's friends, family and mosque members all claim they are totally surprised and shocked by the actions of the "lone wolf". The article provides a convincing argument that in the case of the Orlando, Boston, Chattanooga and San Bernardino terrorists this is a false narrative. There are locals who are complicit in supporting or keeping secret their preparations.

 

[Glocktogo]

The "lone wolf" narrative pushed by the current administration is that one person on their own latches onto crazy ideas from overseas sources and so is radicalized with absolutely no support from local muslims. The terrorist's friends, family and mosque members all claim they are totally surprised and shocked by the actions of the "lone wolf". The article provides a convincing argument that in the case of the Orlando, Boston, Chattanooga and San Bernardino terrorists this is a false narrative. There are locals who are complicit in supporting or keeping secret their preparations.

This. They want to pretend no one could've foreseen this within his circle of friends and family, which is utter BS. Casual acquaintances knew he hat hateful bigoted tendencies and they told people about it. You're trying to tell me that casual acquaintances could figure out this guy was a lit fuse, the people who knew him best didn't? Yeah... Right...

 

[Dale00]

This is above and beyond the President's refusal to identify radical Islam as the enemy.

I have never heard the President condemn any U.S. mosque or U.S. muslim faction as harboring and promoting radical ideology or terrorist acts. Please prove me wrong about this.

By failing to condemn radical mosques, family members and friends complicit in supporting or keeping secret the preparations of terrorists and by actively discouraging law enforcement from pursuing possible co-conspirators, he is in effect supporting the incubation of terrorists. I believe it is a matter of ideological blindness rather than overt hostility to the U.S.. But whichever the case, his leadership is deeply flawed.

 

[sanjuro893]

I always wondered if the local Imam or a teacher at a muslim school heard somebody talking radicalization how they deal with it. Do they report it? Discreetly try to talk them out of it? Keep it quiet so as not to lose credibility in the community?

 

[donner]

the benefit of hindsight is that it puts a lot of things in perspective. While this person might have spouted off about the US, it could have come across as disgust for our foreign policy or other 'protected' political speech. Only after this tragedy happened did it start to seem like something more.

For example, your neighbor could see you fly your US flag upside down, have seen you with guns and heard you talk about your feels about the direction this country is going and how it's leadership is failing us. Does that mean they should report you to the authorities? Have you done anything illegal? Keeping in mind there have been several attacks by white males (which most of us are), we would fit a 'profile' to some.

Also, you can be 'radicalized' and still have not violated any laws, so what should have been done? Should he have been put on a list and prevented from purchasing his weapons? Should they have been seized?

Lone wolf, as i understand it to have been used in the past, generally means the person wasn't part of a larger cell or plot. Not that 'no one else' had any knowledge about the person's feeling. That being a 'lone wolf' meant that there was less 'chatter' to intercept since orders weren't coming from places abroad.

 

[sanjuro893]

the benefit of hindsight is that it puts a lot of things in perspective. While this person might have spouted off about the US, it could have come across as disgust for our foreign policy or other 'protected' political speech. Only after this tragedy happened did it start to seem like something more.

For example, your neighbor could see you fly your US flag upside down, have seen you with guns and heard you talk about your feels about the direction this country is going and how it's leadership is failing us. Does that mean they should report you to the authorities? Have you done anything illegal? Keeping in mind there have been several attacks by white males (which most of us are), we would fit a 'profile' to some.

Also, you can be 'radicalized' and still have not violated any laws, so what should have been done? Should he have been put on a list and prevented from purchasing his weapons? Should they have been seized?

Lone wolf, as i understand it to have been used in the past, generally means the person wasn't part of a larger cell or plot. Not that 'no one else' had any knowledge about the person's feeling. That being a 'lone wolf' meant that there was less 'chatter' to intercept since orders weren't coming from places abroad.

Yeah. If we lose due process, we might as well hang it all up and call this 200 yr old experiment over.

 

[undeg01]

This is above and beyond the President's refusal to identify radical Islam as the enemy.

I have never heard the President condemn any U.S. mosque or U.S. muslim faction as harboring and promoting radical ideology or terrorist acts. Please prove me wrong about this.

By failing to condemn radical mosques, family members and friends complicit in supporting or keeping secret the preparations of terrorists and by actively discouraging law enforcement from pursuing possible co-conspirators, he is in effect supporting the incubation of terrorists. I believe it is a matter of ideological blindness rather than overt hostility to the U.S.. But whichever the case, his leadership is deeply flawed.

What a lot of people don't realize, or fail to acknowledge, is that Muslim laws and military/militant actions start with the religious leaders. Where the U.S. separates church and state, those two are tightly intertwined in the Muslim world. That being the case, I wouldn't be opposed to surveiling mosques. It is no secret that our government spies on military leaders of other countries. It just so happens that in the Muslim world, the military leaders and decision makers are found in the Mosques rather than government buildings.

Just like the British found when fighting the early American settlers, this is a different war than we are accustomed to and our tactics and strategies must change, otherwise we lose.

 

[Glocktogo]

the benefit of hindsight is that it puts a lot of things in perspective. While this person might have spouted off about the US, it could have come across as disgust for our foreign policy or other 'protected' political speech. Only after this tragedy happened did it start to seem like something more.

For example, your neighbor could see you fly your US flag upside down, have seen you with guns and heard you talk about your feels about the direction this country is going and how it's leadership is failing us. Does that mean they should report you to the authorities? Have you done anything illegal? Keeping in mind there have been several attacks by white males (which most of us are), we would fit a 'profile' to some.

Also, you can be 'radicalized' and still have not violated any laws, so what should have been done? Should he have been put on a list and prevented from purchasing his weapons? Should they have been seized?

Lone wolf, as i understand it to have been used in the past, generally means the person wasn't part of a larger cell or plot. Not that 'no one else' had any knowledge about the person's feeling. That being a 'lone wolf' meant that there was less 'chatter' to intercept since orders weren't coming from places abroad.

That's incorrect. He was well above the threshold for reporting on multiple occasions and those reports were made. The problem is a lack of trained CT agents and officers who can recognize and articulate the difference between just spouting off angrily and someone with intent to commit a crime. That's just the baseline, a really good CT agent can elicit the responses necessary to breach the threshold, should they feel the subject is truly on the path to an attack.

While it's true that "chatter" intercepts are proverbial gold in establishing a foreign terror plot conspiracy, that speaks more to the prosecution than prevention. These events always wind up producing an "unindicted co-conspirator" list. here are three examples:

http://www.investigativeproject.org/1854/doj-cairs-unindicted-co-conspirator-status-legit#

http://www.charityandsecurity.org/news/unindicted_coconspirators_list_ordered_sealed

http://peterlance.com/172_unindicted_co-conspirators_Day_of_Terror.pdf

These are people who are known to have facilitated terrorism, which may mean something as simple as aggregating funds or providing guidance and expertise, to facilitating operations. In the so-called "lone wolf" cases, there may not be as much (or any) "chatter" to exploit, but that doesn't mean there wasn't anyone supporting the lone wolf in one way or another.

Another issue is how to negotiate the pitfalls of information sharing without violating a person's civil rights. Those rights are important and need to be continually kept in mind, while also understanding the rights of potential victims are important too. Overall, CT work is a VERY complex game of "what if" and "when is too soon, vs. when is too late".

What a lot of people don't realize, or fail to acknowledge, is that Muslim laws and military/militant actions start with the religious leaders. Where the U.S. separates church and state, those two are tightly intertwined in the Muslim world. That being the case, I wouldn't be opposed to surveiling mosques. It is no secret that our government spies on military leaders of other countries. It just so happens that in the Muslim world, the military leaders and decision makers are found in the Mosques rather than government buildings.

Just like the British found when fighting the early American settlers, this is a different war than we are accustomed to and our tactics and strategies must change, otherwise we lose.

Exactly! Islam isn't merely a religion. It's a socio-political ideology based on a religion, with a complete legal framework as support. To merely call it a religion is disingenuous at best and downright deceptive at worst. Until the West learns to separate the three distinct aspects of Islam and focus on the socio-political aspects of Muslim extremism, we are doomed to repeat our failures. That's one significant reason President Obama is such a huge failure in combatting Islamic extremism. He either can't or won't admit to the key aspects of the problem. If you can't identify and speak to the problem, your ability to effectively mitigate the problem will be severely compromised.