Following the occurrence of several terrorist attacks similar to those which took place in European and Asian countries such as France, Belgium, and Bangladesh, the term “lone wolves” has spread broadly. The term is used to refer to terrorists who implement these operations and – most often – have adopted the ideology of cross-border terrorist organizations, such as ISIS, or Al-Qaeda, regardless of whether the operation was carried out individually or in a group.
This lends a particular importance to standardizing the term “lone wolf” and situating the phrase in its proper context, especially in light of the repeated terrorist operations for which ISIS has declared responsibility in areas outside of the Middle East. The group has come to rely heavily on individuals who are convinced of their ideas and undertake terrorist operations in response to the military strikes against ISIS, and who have come to be known as lone wolves.
Several Patterns
The terrorist operations implemented by lone wolves vary; some operations are undertaken by a group of individuals, such as the Paris attacks which took place on 13 November 2015 and included mass shootings, suicide bombings, and hostage-taking. This is in addition to the Brussels bombings on 22 March 2016, which targeted the Brussels International Airport and Malbec Metro Station, the attack on Al-Rukban in Jordan on 21 June 2016, and the attack on a café in the diplomatic district in the Bengali capital of Dhaka at the beginning of July 2016.
It is striking that, despite the fact that these operations were carried out in a group, and notwithstanding the emergence of several indicators of the presence of organizational links between those who implemented these operations and terrorist organizations (especially ISIS), this does not prevent those who undertook the attacks from being labeled “lone wolves.”
Individual Attacks
The final pattern of terror attacks implemented by “lone wolves” is represented in terror operations undertaken by one individual who utilizes their personal capabilities without any indications of a link between the individual and terrorist organizations and without obtaining support from such an organization. The most prominent of these include the attack in Nice, France, undertaken by a French citizen of Tunisian heritage who drove a truck over crowds of revelers on Bastille Day on 14 July 2016. There was also an attack on train passengers in the German city of Wurzburg which was undertaken by a 17-year-old Afghani refugee armed with a knife on the 19th July 2016.
This does not negate the fact that exceptional circumstances exist in these contexts. There are many indications that these lone wolves may have received direct instructions from terrorist organizations to carry out attacks. This was true for the young German woman of Moroccan origin who stabbed a German police officer in the city of Hanover in February 2016. German prosecutors announced that in January 2016, the girl met ISIS members who tried to help her enter the lands they controlled in Syria, and made contact online in order to plan the process.
Of course, the fact that this term describes a variety of operations implemented in a collective versus individual manner means that clear criteria must be set out for the term “lone wolves,” which has spread broadly in recent times. The term will likely come to describe operations that may have been implemented by terrorist organizations in response to air strikes they have suffered on the ground.
A Variety of Features
In light of this, due to the fluidity of the term and its deployment to generally describe terrorist operations undertaken both by individuals and groups associated with terror organizations, several determinants exist which may help standardize the term. The most important of these are as follows:
1. Individual work: The most important features of a lone wolf terrorist include the fact that he or she works completely alone by choosing a target, planning, and implementing the attack, receiving little to no help from other parties. The terrorist attacks undertaken by lone wolves are often characterized as a “single strike” or “single stage” meaning that the attack does not involve any other stages, and that, most often, the attacker is caught by security services, as was the case in Nice and Wurzburg.
2. An intellectual, not organizational, link: Lone wolves are most often tied to terror organizations intellectually and not organizationally, as they are convinced by the ideas of the organization in a manner which pushes them to undertake terror operations without the presence of an organizational link or without receiving direct instructions from the organization to undertake the operation. The individual executes the attack to “answer the call” as terrorist organizations say. This is exactly what was described by ISIS when they claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on train passengers in Germany which was carried out by a young Afghan.
3. Reliance on available resources: Lone wolves always rely on simply available resources which are easy to access and use, especially as those who implement these types of attacks strive – according to several indicators – to kill first and foremost, and not to undertake large operations due to their weak capabilities and the nature of individual work. Large operations require collective work and greater capacities.
4. Self-financing: Often, an individual who may be called a lone wolf will finance the operation themselves by relying on personal resources and without any help from the organization they are intellectually associated with. For this reason, much of the time, lone wolf operations are limited in terms of capacity and cost, because they rely on just one person and limited personal resources.
5. Difficult to monitor: Much of the time, a person who undertakes a solo operation and is called a lone wolf will not have prior criminal offenses. This renders them unknown to security forces, which makes planning and implementation of the operation easier. Security forces are therefore unable to prevent the operation from taking place.
However, it should be noted that this feature does not appear to be generalized, because some solo terrorists do have prior offenses, such as the Nice attacker, who was known to security forces. Several reports indicated that he had committed five crimes in the past, including armed violence.
6. Residence in the targeted country: In most cases, terrorists who are referred to as lone wolves live in the country in which their attack is implemented, which helps them choose both a target and a method.
Overall, it appears that some confusion exists in defining a “lone wolf,” a term which has risen to prominence in recent years. The term is used for those who undertake a terrorist operation even if this is done in an organized, collective manner through a specific mandate from the terrorist organization which the attackers belong to, which is not consistent with the facts of the ground which point out that lone wolves are individuals which implement terrorist operations without instructions from any party and instead rely on their abilities. This is what appears to have motivated calls made during recent times to distinguish between lone wolves and terrorists who carry out operations as directly commissioned by the terrorist organizations to which they belong.
