Recruitment of the Lone Wolf

Introduction

The recent terrorist episodes in the US have all been incidents of Lone Wolf terrorism. From the bombing of the Oklahoma City Building in 1995 by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to the Charlottesville attack in 2017 by neo-Nazi James Fields, Lone Wolf terrorists exist in this country and their presence is the most important current domestic security concern. This paper will explain why Lone Wolf terrorism is the most important security concern for the US and how Internet recruitment is playing a part in the spreading of violent actions by extremists.

What is Lone Wolf Terrorism?

Lone Wolf terrorists are terrorists who act alone without any support group, network and assistance from a terror cell or organization. Lone Wolfs may be motivated by ideology that is shared by other people and groups, but they are not supported by these groups or given orders to act. They are not part of an overall infrastructure and do not take commands from anyone.

An example of a Lone Wolf terrorist would be Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, whose manifesto revealed the extreme Right ideology that prompted his actions. Another example would be the New Zealand mosque shooter, who left behind ample evidence of his inspiration for mass murdering Muslims at their place of prayer. McVeigh and Nichols can be considered Lone Wolves, and the Orlando night club shooter could be considered a Lone Wolf as well. What they all have in common is that they were operating on their own, outside of any organized terrorist cell. Their actions were directed solely by themselves.

Yet they are not created in a bubbleparticularly today. Lone Wolf terrorism is as much a reaction to the Left-Right paradigm that has spread across the world as it is to social media influence, where extremist ideologies are communicated and fuel individuals focused on taking violent action. Yet, as Weimann notes, Lone Wolves actually hunt in packs and their hunting ground is cyberspace: They are recruited, radicalized, taught, trained and directed by others.[footnoteRef:2] From Facebook to YouTube to Twitter, social media platforms are places where Lone Wolf terrorists can be formed in cyberspace and unleashed onto the real world. [2: Weimann, Gabriel. "Lone wolves in cyberspace."Journal of Terrorism Research(2012), 1.]

The Formation of Lone Wolf Terrorists

Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter of 2009, is a good example of a Lone Wolf terrorist radicalized on cyberspace. Hasan was a US Army major and psychologist. He had been in contact with a Yemen freedom fighter by the name of Imam Anwar al-Awlaki and they had exchanged emails for some time leading up to Hasans attack on the military base, where 13 people were killed and 30 wounded.[footnoteRef:3] Hasan openly admitted afterwards that he had been radicalized and had come to believe that he was working for the enemy and that he had to fight back against what he perceived to be an evil American foreign policy that was killing his people in the Middle East. He identified with Middle Eastern Muslim radicals and wanted to take vengeance against the American military as a means of retribution. He was not legitimately or officially acting on behalf of any organized terrorist groupbut, as Weimann has shown, he was shaped by those people. He was initiated into their ideological worldview by way of cyberspace. As Meleagrou-Hitchens...

…platforms for users to meet and share views. The big social networking platforms are just a drop in a very large bucket. Numerous platforms exist and just the fact that instant communication is now available as a wide spread technological tool of Web 2.0 indicates that it is not a process that the government can easily monitor. This makes the need to address the issue of Lone Wolf radicalization over the Internet all the more urgent. There is no apparent or ethical solution to the problem.

Conclusion

Thus, addressing this issue is not something that the government will be able to take lightly in the coming years. Serious discussion in Congress will be required about how the Internet is provided to people, who is allowed access to it, who is permitted access to digital technology, and so on. One possible solution is that just as there are strict gun laws that regulate the sale of guns, there may need to be strict Internet laws that prevent people from having access to the Internet if they have been flagged by mental health workers as potentially at risk for radicalization. The Fort Hood shooter had been flagged for this exact issueyet his Internet access was never cut off nor did government officials take action to prevent the tragedy soon enough. What his story and the story of all the other Lone Wolf terrorists that America has seen is that instead of monitoring and attempting to control the Internet, it may be helpful simply to better monitor the lives of individuals and to provide people with a way to report on those who are showing obvious signs of radicalizationas Hasan did in the months…