Lone Wolf Terror And The Rise Of Leaderless Resistance

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a car bomb in downtown Oslo, Norway. He didn't stop there, traveling several hours from the city to ambush a youth camp while the rest of Norway was distracted by his earlier attack. That's where the facts end. But what motivated him? Did he have help staging the attacks? The evidence suggests a startling truth: that this was the work of one man, pursuing a mission he was convinced was just. If Breivik did indeed act alone, he wouldn't be the first. Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City based essentially on his own motivations. Eric Robert Rudolph embarked on a campaign of terror over several years, including the Centennial Park bombing at the 1996 Olympics. Ted Kaczynski was revealed to be the Unabomber that same year. And these are only the most notable examples. As George Michael demonstrates in Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance, they are not isolated cases. Rather, they represent the new way warfare will be conducted in the twenty-first century. Lone Wolf Terror investigates the motivations of numerous political and ideological elements, such as right-wing individuals, ecoextremists, foreign jihadists, and even quasi-governmental entities. In all these cases, those carrying out destructive acts operate as "lone wolves" and small cells, with little or no connection to formal organizations. Ultimately, Michael suggests that leaderless resistance has become the most common tactical approach of political terrorists in the West and elsewhere.

From Anders Breivik in Norway, who murdered scores of young people in a bombing and mass-shooting attack, to Omar Mateen, the Orlando killer who perpetrated the worst mass shooting in American history, lone wolves have demonstrated that they can be as dangerous as organized terrorist groups. Who are these terrorists and what can be done about them? An internationally renowned terrorism expert presents the first comprehensive treatment of this important issue. After delving into the diversity in motivations and backgrounds of lone wolf terrorists, Simon makes the following key points about this growing threat: lone wolves have proven to be more creative and dangerous than many terrorist groups; lone wolves are not just Islamist extremists but can be found among all types of political and religious ideologies; the Internet has provided the perfect breeding ground for isolated individuals with terrorist tendencies, but it may also prove to be their undoing; there are few women in this category, but this is likely to change in the coming years; and the common perception that nothing can be done about lone wolves is wrong. In fact, innovative strategies and policies can be developed to both prevent and respond to this type of terrorism. Drawing on his more than twenty-five years of experience studying terrorism, Simon has produced an insightful book that is essential reading for anyone concerned about the potential terrorist threats from violence-prone individuals in our midst. This paperback edition contains a new preface by the author, which reviews lone-wolf incidents since the publication of the original edition.

As the attacks in Norway, Munich and most recently Christchurch have shown: a new threat is now shaking liberal Western societies. Radicalized right-wing extremists – so-called lone wolves – are engaging in individually planned terror attacks. Written by an expert on terrorism and populism, this book highlights the dynamics of this new breed of terrorism. By providing in-depth insights into the biographies of individual perpetrators, it illustrates the changing profile of the typical lone terrorist. This new kind of terrorist engages in violence without being a member of a party or organization, yet is radicalized by a global right-wing subculture that communicates in virtual networks. This startling and well-written book reveals the ideological roots of lone wolf terrorism and urges governments and civil society to take the threat seriously and implement suitable countermeasures.

President Obama has declared that the greatest terrorist threat which America faces is attacks by lone wolf terrorists. This volume expands the lone wolf rubric to include autonomous cells: small groups of terrorists who cooperate, but operate independently. The challenge presented by lone wolves and autonomous cells, unlike the threat emanating from established terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, has proven intractable because of the difficulty of gathering intelligence on these actors or effectively countering their actions. Lone wolves operate under the radar, staging deadly attacks such as that at the Boston Marathon, and the 2011 attacks in Norway. This volume includes Theory and Policy Studies, individual case studies and the technological impacts of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as well as the impact of social media in the process of recruitment and radicalization. This book was originally published as a special issue of Terrorism & Political Violence.

The white power movement in America wants a revolution. It has declared all-out war against the federal government and its agents, and has carried out—with military precision—an escalating campaign of terror against the American public. Its soldiers are not lone wolves but are highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent and deeply troubling worldview of white supremacy, anticommunism, and apocalypse. In Bring the War Home, Kathleen Belew gives us the first full history of the movement that consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s around a potent sense of betrayal in the Vietnam War and made tragic headlines in the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. Returning to an America ripped apart by a war that, in their view, they were not allowed to win, a small but driven group of veterans, active-duty personnel, and civilian supporters concluded that waging war on their own country was justified. They unified people from a variety of militant groups, including Klansmen, neo-Nazis, skinheads, radical tax protestors, and white separatists. The white power movement operated with discipline and clarity, undertaking assassinations, mercenary soldiering, armed robbery, counterfeiting, and weapons trafficking. Its command structure gave women a prominent place in brokering intergroup alliances and giving birth to future recruits. Belew’s disturbing history reveals how war cannot be contained in time and space. In its wake, grievances intensify and violence becomes a logical course of action for some. Bring the War Home argues for awareness of the heightened potential for paramilitarism in a present defined by ongoing war.

American Self-Radicalizing Terrorists and the Allure of Jihadi Cool/Chic provides a critical legal analysis of how American self-radicalizing terrorists become what they are by analyzing, in detail, the stories of Colleen LaRose, America’s first Most Wanted Female Terrorist, and the Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan and Jahar (Dzhokhar), the Boston Marathon Bombers. Drawing from the analytic tools of cutting-edge studies on terrorism by global experts, as well as the latest news reports, policy papers, Congressional Hearings, and legal documents, the book illustrates how the internet provides the means through which a self-activating terrorist may first self-radicalize through some imaginary or sympathetic connection with an organized terrorist network. Additionally, it shows how the romance of “jihadi cool/chic,” packaged by its mastery of Hollywood-style shots and editing, resulting in slick, high resolution productions micro-tailored to appeal to different audiences, is a pivotal factor in the evolution of self-radicalizing terrorists. While showing how there is no single deterministic pathway to radicalization, the book also demonstrates how the internet and imagined relations cemented by the rhetorics of “jihadi cool” or “jihadi chic” function as crucial catalysts, galvanizing “monster talk” into monstrous action. It includes an analysis of “America’s Most Watched Trial,” United States v. Tsarnaev, as it moved through its “guilt” and “penalty” phases, and its culmination in Jahar’s being sentenced to death by lethal injection as America’s youngest self-radicalizing terrorist. The book closes with concise updates regarding America’s self-radicalizing terrorists, such as, among others, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the couple who sprayed a crowd of their colleagues with bullets at a San Bernardino holiday party on December 2, 2015; Omar Mateen, the security guard whose rampage at an Orlando nightclub on June 12, 2016 resulted in America’s worst mass shooting thus far; and Ahmad Khan Rahami, the individual arrested in relation to the New York and New Jersey bombings and attempted bombings on September 17-18, 2016.

Using lively case studies, this book analyzes the transformation of crime and terrorism and the business logic of terrorism.

The American Republic was born in revolt against the British crown, and ever since, political extremism has had a long tradition in the United States. To some observers, the continued presence of extremist groups--and the escalation of their activities--portends the fragmentation of the country, while others believe such is the way American pluralism works. The word extremism often carries negative connotations, yet in 1964 Barry Goldwater famously said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Extremism in America is a sweeping overview and assessment of the various brands of bigotry, prejudice, zealotry, dogmatism, and partisanship found in the United States, including the extreme right, the antiglobalization movement, Black Nationalism, Chicano separatism, militant Islam, Jewish extremism, eco-extremism, the radical antiabortion movement, and extremist terrorism. Many of these forms of single-minded intolerance are repressed by both the state and society at large, but others receive significant support from their constituencies and enjoy a level of respectability in some quarters of the mainstream. The essays in this volume, written by area specialists, examine the relationship between these movements and the larger society, dissect the arguments of contemporary American anarchist activists, look at recent trends in political extremism, and suggest how and why such arguments resonate with a considerable number of people.