tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/lone-wolf-14092/articlesLone wolf – The Conversation2021-06-16T03:29:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1627582021-06-16T03:29:28Z2021-06-16T03:29:28ZFriendlyjordies producer arrest: what is the NSW Police Fixated Persons Investigations Unit and when is it used?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406353/original/file-20210615-13-1csy190.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1899%2C870&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(YouTube: Friendlyjordies)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A producer for YouTube comedian Friendlyjordies was recently arrested for allegedly stalking and intimidating NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, following investigations by the Fixated Persons Investigations Unit (FPIU) of the NSW police.</p>
<p>This unit, set up in the wake of the Lindt café siege, was created to monitor extremists and fixated persons who may not fall under Australia’s counter-terrorism laws but nonetheless pose a risk of serious violence. </p>
<p>At the heart of this case will be the charges of intimidation and stalking, but it also will raise questions around what constitutes a “fixated person” and when the use of this unit is appropriate.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-doesnt-need-more-anti-terror-laws-that-arent-necessary-or-even-used-138827">Australia doesn't need more anti-terror laws that aren't necessary – or even used</a>
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<h2>Two alleged incidents</h2>
<p>Kristo Langker, 21, produces videos for the popular YouTube channel Friendlyjordies, run by Jordan Shanks. At the time of writing, the channel has around 500,000 subscribers.</p>
<p>Shanks has appeared in videos alleging wrongdoing by NSW Nationals leader Barilaro, which Barilaro has strenuously denied. Lawyers for Barilaro <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/28/youtube-comedian-friendlyjordies-sued-for-defamation-by-nsw-deputy-premier-john-barilaro">say</a> Shanks defamed the deputy premier in a number of “vile and racist” videos. The NSW deputy premier is now <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-28/nsw-nationals-john-barilaro-sues-friendlyjordies-for-defamation/100174276">suing</a> Shanks (and Google) for defamation.</p>
<p>Langker was arrested at a home in Dulwich Hill, Sydney, on June 4. The charges relate to two alleged incidents.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/14/friendlyjordies-jordan-shanks-producer-charged-allegedly-stalking-john-barilaro">Guardian Australia news report</a>, the first allegedly occurred at a Macquarie University politics in the pub event. Langker and Shanks (who was dressed as Luigi from Mario Brothers) approached Barilaro and shouted “Why are you suing us?”. According to police, as reported in the Guardian, Shanks then left but Lankger stayed, repeating the question and allegedly “tussling with several persons in an attempt to get close” to Barilaro.</p>
<p>The second alleged incident involved Langker filming and speaking to Barilaro as he returned to his car after the funeral of rugby league player Bob Fulton. According to the same <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/14/friendlyjordies-jordan-shanks-producer-charged-allegedly-stalking-john-barilaro">Guardian report</a>, Langker asked the NSW deputy premier again, “why are you suing my boss?”. According to the report, this second incident allegedly occurred hours before Langker’s arrest.</p>
<p>Based on these alleged incidents, Langker was <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/friendlyjordies-producer-arrested-charged-with-stalking-john-barilaro/news-story/fc078d5cfab72ccc90e9c9f46f734be3">arrested by the FPIU</a> and charged with two counts of stalking and intimidation. The <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/capva2007347/s13.html">offence</a> attracts a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, where someone stalks or intimidates another person with intent to cause the person fear of physical or mental harm.</p>
<p>Langker has been released on bail under <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/14/friendlyjordies-jordan-shanks-producer-charged-allegedly-stalking-john-barilaro">very strict conditions</a>. He is even prohibited from possessing images or caricatures of the deputy premier, or “commenting on his appearance or behaviour”.</p>
<h2>The Fixated Persons Investigations Unit</h2>
<p>The FPIU was established in April 2017, shortly before the NSW coroner released his report into the Lindt café siege.</p>
<p>In announcing the new unit, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller referred to people who are “obsessed about issues, ideals or individuals” and are “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/nsw-police-taskforce-extremists-2017-4">plotting acts of violence</a>” or “<a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/up-to-50-wouldbe-extremists-assessed-by-new-police-fixated-persons-unit-20170426-gvsldb.html">capable of acts of terrorism</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/up-to-50-wouldbe-extremists-assessed-by-new-police-fixated-persons-unit-20170426-gvsldb.html">The unit</a> comprises 17 detectives and government mental health workers. It is based on similar units established previously in the UK and Queensland.</p>
<p>The FPIU is a specialist unit that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/26/nsw-police-establish-fixated-persons-unit-to-help-counter-lone-wolf-terror-attacks">performs risk assessments</a> of people with obsessions, grievances or ideologies that may lead to serious violence. It can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/26/nsw-police-establish-fixated-persons-unit-to-help-counter-lone-wolf-terror-attacks">access a suspect’s medical records</a> to assess the level of risk they pose.</p>
<p>People monitored by the FPIU include a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-02/two-arrested-alleged-car-bombing-illawarra/10963630">man who bombed a couple’s car</a> following months of online abuse, and another who was charged with terrorism offences after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jan/03/sydney-man-who-allegedly-threatened-police-charged-with-terrorism-offences">threatening Sydney police with a knife</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.lindtinquest.justice.nsw.gov.au/Documents/findings-and-recommendations.pdf">NSW coroner</a> supported the unit’s creation, calling it a “commendable” step towards improving terrorism prevention. He believed there was a clear gap in the identification and management of “lone-actor terrorists or fixated individuals”, who could fall through the cracks despite repeated warning signs of violence.</p>
<p>In response to questions from The Conversation, NSW Police said the FPIU investigates “fixated persons”, which is defined as someone who</p>
<blockquote>
<p>has an obsessive preoccupation, pursued to an excessive or irrational degree with:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a public office holder or internationally protected person, or</p></li>
<li><p>other person/s nominated by the commissioner of police, or</p></li>
<li><p>a cause influenced by an extreme ideology (a “cause” is an intensely personal and idiosyncratic grievance or quest for justice).</p></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Police might argue Langker fits under the first of these grounds, if the content and conduct towards Barilaro could be classed as obsessive and excessive. Langker’s lawyers have <a href="https://twitter.com/xenophondavis/status/1404623642953076736">argued</a> Langker’s arrest and bail conditions “strike at the core of our democracy”.</p>
<p>At trial, the issue will be whether the charges of stalking and intimidation can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but the case may also set a precedent about what is fixated behaviour and an appropriate use of the FPIU. If that bar is set too low, there will be a serious risk to free speech and democracy. Of course, everything will turn on the evidence at trial, so we should watch this case closely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keiran Hardy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The case may set a precedent about what is fixated behaviour and an appropriate use of the FPIU.Keiran Hardy, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1214682019-08-06T12:56:13Z2019-08-06T12:56:13ZFrom across the globe to El Paso, changes in the language of the far-right explain its current violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286974/original/file-20190805-36381-752a8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Law enforcement officers walking to the scene of a shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Texas-Mall-Shooting/5987fafc0f114e34b2aa9553b955b983/165/0">AP/Rudy Gutierrez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/05/us/el-paso-shooting-monday/index.html">shooting attack</a> in which a young white man is accused of killing 22 people in a Walmart in El Paso fits a new trend among perpetrators of far-right violence: They want the world to know why they did it. </p>
<p>So they provide <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/patrick-crusius-el-paso-shooter-manifesto.html">a comprehensive ideological manifesto</a> that aims to explain the reasoning behind their actions as well as to encourage others to follow in their steps.</p>
<p>In the past, only <a href="https://info.publicintelligence.net/CTC-ViolentFarRight.pdf">leaders of far-right groups did this</a>. Now, it’s common among <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-drives-lone-offenders-62745">lone-wolf perpetrators</a>, such as the alleged perpetrator in El Paso. </p>
<p>In the past decade, the language of white supremacists has transformed in important ways. It crossed national borders, broadened its focus and has been influenced by current mainstream political discourse. </p>
<p>I study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xBQYKHwAAAAJ&hl=en">political violence and extremism</a>. In my recent research, I have identified these changes and believe that they can provide important insights into the current landscape of the American and European violent far-right. </p>
<p>The changes also allow us to understand how the violent far-right mobilizes support, shapes political perceptions and eventually advances their objectives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286978/original/file-20190805-36395-y4q1ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vigil to commemorate the 50 victims of a March 15 shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which the accused shooter issued a 74-page manifesto prior to the massacre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/New-Zealand-Mosque-Shooting-Free-Speech/0965b04afbdf442daabd9c5d24581e0a/2/0">AP/Vincent Yu</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New identity crosses borders</h2>
<p>Since the early stages of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/white-supremacy">American white supremacy movement in the mid-19th century</a>, the movement has always emphasized <a href="http://insct.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Blessing_Roberts_Berlin_Report-mwedit070618.pdf">the superiority of Western culture and the need for segregation</a> between racial groups in order to maintain the purity and dominance of the white race. </p>
<p>For example, in the 1980s, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Blood_in_the_Face.html?id=2MlmswEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description">a Ku Klux Klan affiliate published a map</a> allocating specific parts of the U.S. to specific ethnic communities. The map makers imagined Jews limited to the New York area, while Hispanics were to live in Florida. </p>
<p>But recently, a growing number of far-right activists have preferred to focus on cultural and social differences between communities, rather than on attributes such as race and ethnic origin. </p>
<p>They justify their violence as a way to preserve certain cultural-religious practices, rather than relying on their old justification – maintaining the genetic purity of the white race. In these activists’ view, the battle has moved from genes to culture. </p>
<p>For example, a member of the National Socialist Movement, an American neo-Nazi organization, wrote in a 2018 online post that white American is an identity like African American or Jewish American. In a statement that probably wouldn’t have been made by previous generations of neo-Nazis, the member wrote that all whites should come together, using their knowledge and weapons, to stop non-Europeans from pushing their secular agenda via government and media power. </p>
<h2>Countering liberal left’s cultural influence</h2>
<p>Another traditional theme of the far-right discourse – preserving the patriarchal order from attacks from the left – has grown in prominence. </p>
<p>Anders Breivik, who <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/26/world/europe/norway-terror-attacks/index.html">killed 77 people and injured more than 300</a> in July 2011 in Europe’s most lethal act of white supremacism, issued a manifesto shortly before his rampage. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/27/breivik-anti-feminism">In it, he stated</a> that the politically correct terminology which is becoming more prevalent in the West intends to “deny the intrinsic worth of native Christian European heterosexual males” who were reduced to an “emasculate[d] … touchy-feely subspecies.” </p>
<p>Such sentiments are becoming more prevalent in the white supremacist forums, and reflect another component of what they perceived as an ongoing cultural war to preserve the white Christian way of life. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286975/original/file-20190805-36367-dl0nng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Belgian Flemish right-wing party member Tanguy Veys holds a copy of a manifesto sent to him and written by Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 76 people in twin attacks in Norway in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Belgium-Norway-Massacre/b65388d5ead04f36978b48545a27591f/36/0">AP/Virginia Mayo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New transnational culture</h2>
<p>The declining emphasis by the far-right on nationalism has led to the adoption of a transnational identity based on race, culture and religion.</p>
<p>Simply put, they feel closer to whites in other countries than non-whites who live in their neighborhood. </p>
<p>This explains why we have seen a <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-20/white-nationalism-born-usa-now-global-terror-threat">global spread of violent white nationalism in recent years</a> as the far-right finds kinship with like-minded nationalists in other countries. </p>
<p>Racial identity was always a prime component in the identity of far-right activists, but it was usually framed by local politics. In the past, racist British skinheads focused mainly on what they perceived as the interests of the British white working class. Today the rhetoric of most skinheads focuses on international geopolitics, although local issues haven’t been abandoned. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/05/21/725390449/accused-shooter-in-new-zealand-mosque-attacks-charged-with-terrorism">attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which an Australian white supremacist killed 51</a> Muslim worshippers in a mosque on March 15, 2019, reflects that far-right activists seem to increasingly embrace a regional, if not global, perspective in the way they define their constituencies and the threats they are facing. </p>
<p>The Christchurch attacker’s manifesto was clearly <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/3/15/18267163/new-zealand-shooting-christchurch-white-nationalism-racism-language">inspired by far-right rhetoric from European and American groups</a>, such as notions of <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/what-the-christchurch-attackers-manifesto-tells-us.html">“white genocide</a>.” He specifically mentions Norway’s Breivik as a role model. </p>
<h2>Legitimizing far-right ideology in the US</h2>
<p>In the U.S., what’s different about the current rhetoric of the far-right is that they are now using terminology that can also be found in some mainstream political parties and movements, aiding their efforts to gain popular legitimacy. </p>
<p>For example, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan released a new set of organizational goals a couple of years ago. Beyond their longstanding, bedrock belief – <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2015648259/">the protection of the white race</a> – they also declare support for restricting immigration and free trade and ending or limiting foreign aid. They want government to provide protection to small businesses, agricultural workers and gun owners.</p>
<p>This broad ideological shift also spilled over to some far-right skinhead organizations. <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/legal-and-political-magazines/volksfront">Volksfront</a>, for example, declares in its online mission statement that beyond white nationalism, the organization will fight for economic issues, states’ rights, crime repression and labor rights. </p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump’s language about the need to restore order to the streets of America, as expressed <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/01/20/510629447/watch-live-president-trumps-inauguration-ceremony">in his inaugural address</a>, is also evident in the language of American white supremacists. In a poster produced by the skinhead group <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/keystone-state-skinheadskeystone-united">Keystone United</a>, they call for harsher punishments for drug dealers. </p>
<p>The demand for stricter punishment of criminals is echoed in many racist group platforms. These include support of death penalty expansion, an important point of discussion mainly in skinhead message boards, and levying harsher punishments for sexual offenses. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/">Since minorities are overrepresented</a> among American incarcerated population, far-right activists see these criminal justice policies as a more “legitimate” way to “punish” members of minority groups. </p>
<h2>Two future trends</h2>
<p>These changes in the discourse of the far-right suggest two important trends. </p>
<p>The first is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-nationalism-born-in-the-usa-is-now-a-global-terror-threat-113825">growth in the international nature of far-right violence</a>, posing a challenge to law enforcement across borders. </p>
<p>Second, the growing overlap between the language of the far-right and the rhetoric of elected officials illustrates how the current polarization in the political system, and delegitimization of minorities by political leaders, can provide legitimacy for radical practices and violence and broader acceptance of ideas, concepts and statements that in the past were the domain of the far-right. </p>
<p>I fear these dynamics are likely to encourage additional far-right activists to express their views via violence. The emerging evidence that the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/el-paso-shooting-patrick-crusius-manifesto-texas-white-nationalist-1452579">El Paso shooter was inspired by popular theories in the far-right rhetorical universe</a>, such as that of the “great replacement,” is a clear warning sign. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arie Perliger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Major changes in the language of white supremacists have happened in the last decade that provide a window into how the groups mobilize support, shape political perceptions and advance their cause.Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/867462017-11-01T23:51:09Z2017-11-01T23:51:09ZWhat draws ‘lone wolves’ to the Islamic State?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192907/original/file-20171101-19847-102yfck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police work near a damaged Home Depot truck on Nov. 1, 2017, after a motorist drove onto a bike path near the World Trade Center memorial. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Andres Kudacki</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent attack on a bike path in <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/spain-terror-threat-van-attack-isis-first-europe-country-651983">lower Manhattan</a> once again compels us to ask: Why do people pledge allegiance to the Islamic State?</p>
<p>Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the attack, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/nyregion/sayfullo-saipov-manhattan-truck-attack.html">isn’t a devout Muslim</a>. He cursed and came late to prayers, according to acquaintances <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/nyregion/sayfullo-saipov-manhattan-truck-attack.html">who talked to The New York Times</a>. So why would he want to be a martyr?</p>
<p>As a professor of modern Middle Eastern history, I have spent the majority of my professional life studying the region, its culture, society and politics. In recent years, I have researched and written about IS and its terrorist activities. While other experts and I have long looked at how radicalization occurs, some new ideas are emerging.</p>
<h2>Of lone wolves, flaming bananas and machismo</h2>
<p>Like this recent attack in New York, many IS attacks around the globe are carried out by individuals the media have dubbed <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/23/world/isis-lone-wolf-social-media-trnd/index.html">“lone wolves”</a> – that is, freelancers who act without the direct knowledge of the IS leadership. To avoid glamorizing them, the RAND Corporation prefers the term <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/30313709/Terrorism-and-Beyond-A-21st-Century-Perspective">“flaming bananas</a>.” </p>
<p>There are two theories as to why these individuals pledge allegiance to the group. The first is that they get <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hughes-stop-isis-recruit-radicalization-20160517-snap-story.html">“radicalized.”</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-radicalization-happens-and-who-is-at-risk-52248">Radicalization</a> refers to a step-by-step process whereby individuals become increasingly susceptible to jihadi ideas. First, they cut themselves off from social networks such as family, which provide them with support and a conventional value system. They then immerse themselves in a radical religious counterculture. They might do this on their own, or a jihadi recruiter might bring them into the fold. Either way, the result is the same.</p>
<p>Some observers claim IS propaganda plays a key role in recruitment. Rather than presenting a religious rationale for the group’s actions, IS propaganda tends to focus on the violence the group perpetrates. IS has even released a <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2014/09/20/Grand-Theft-Auto-ISIS-Militants-reveal-video-game.html">video game based on Grand Theft Auto 5</a> in which, rather than stealing cars and battling the police, the player destroys advancing personnel carriers and shoots enemy soldiers. </p>
<p>Perhaps, then, the radicalization model is wrong or not universally applicable. Perhaps there’s something other than religious zealotry at play.</p>
<p>Consider the widely reported story of two would-be jihadists who, before they left Birmingham, U.K., for Syria, <a href="https://apnews.com/9f94ff7f1e294118956b049a51548b33">ordered “Islam for Dummies”</a> and “The Koran for Dummies” to fill the gaps in their knowledge.</p>
<p>Newspaper stories time and again puzzle over the problem of how it happens that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/isis-criminals-converts/426822/">individuals who go on to join IS were found in bars,</a> even gay bars, or had Western girlfriends and smoked and drank almost up to the time they committed some act of violence for the group. The most common explanation is that their dissolute lifestyle was a cover. </p>
<p>After the driver of a truck ran down and killed 84 people in Nice, France, for example, the French interior minister was at a loss to explain how <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nice-france-terror-attack-truck-driver-algerian-isis-manuel-valls-booed/">someone who drank during Ramadan</a> – which had ended a week and a half before – could have radicalized so quickly.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182648/original/file-20170818-7959-10oswx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182648/original/file-20170818-7959-10oswx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182648/original/file-20170818-7959-10oswx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182648/original/file-20170818-7959-10oswx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182648/original/file-20170818-7959-10oswx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182648/original/file-20170818-7959-10oswx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182648/original/file-20170818-7959-10oswx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former French President Francois Hollande in Paris in September 2016 at a memorial service for victims killed by terrorism in France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/France-Terrorism/7a09ec8328bb45228f357169ec615fb6/22/0">AP Photo/Michael Euler</a></span>
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<p>A number of experts have argued that the radicalization model should be replaced by, or <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/298536508/Radicalisation-and-Subcultures-a-Theoretical-Analysis">supplemented with, a different model</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than joining a radically different religious counterculture, individuals are attracted to IS, these experts argue, because its actions reaffirm the cultural values of those who are marginalized, or those who exhibit what psychiatrists call “anti-social personality disorders.”</p>
<p>Could it be that IS volunteers are drawn to a value system that asserts an aggressive machismo, disparages steady work and sustains the impulse for immediate gratification? Could it be that they are attracted to a culture that promotes redemption through violence, loyalty, patriarchal values, thrill-seeking to the point of martyrdom and the diminution of women to objects of pleasure?</p>
<p>In this reading, IS more closely resembles the sort of street gang with which many of its Western and Westernized enlistees are familiar than its more austere competitor, al-Qaida.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James L. Gelvin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the Manhattan bike path attack, wasn’t a devout Muslim. He cursed and came late to prayers. A terrorism expert explains why such a man may want to be a martyr.James L. Gelvin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/850692017-10-18T22:30:26Z2017-10-18T22:30:26ZHow terrorists use propaganda to recruit lone wolves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190676/original/file-20171017-19058-fo4ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police investigate the scene where a car crashed into a roadblock during a suspected terrorist attack in Edmonton on Sept. 30. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was a pleasant night in September and many Edmonton residents, knowing the long winter was just around the corner, didn’t want to miss a chance to enjoy a beautiful evening. The fun came to a tragic halt when five people, including a policeman, were injured following a terrorist attack that played out across the city. </p>
<p>A car rammed into Const. Mike Chernyk and the driver then repeatedly stabbed the officer before fleeing on foot. Hours later, during a traffic stop, police say they recognized the driver of a cargo van as the suspect and a chase ensued during which the van struck four pedestrians.</p>
<p>The alleged driver, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-don-iveson-terrorism-attack-lone-wolf-1.4315693">Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, 30, of Edmonton is facing a number of charges, including five counts of attempted murder</a>. Sharif is a refugee from Somalia and RCMP have <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/police-were-told-edmonton-terror-suspect-was-spreading-extremism/">confirmed they interviewed him in 2015</a> because he was “espousing extremist ideology.”</p>
<p>The attack raises questions about a new type of terrorism — and the new methods required to stop the tide of extremism. As with previous terrorist attacks, we may witness an increase in Islamophobia, especially as <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-trump-emboldening-right-wing-extremism-in-canada-82635">right wing extremist movements in Canada and the U.S. continue to rise</a>. There is already evidence this has happened in Edmonton. Two Muslim women have been victims of hateful slurs in public and at least one <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/10/02/women-will-bear-the-brunt-of-the-racism-edmonton-muslim-community-feeling-backlash-after-saturday-attack.html">Muslim woman was hospitalized</a> after she had a bottle smashed on her head while riding on public transit. </p>
<p>As a PhD candidate at the department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, I study the intertwined connections between terrorism and translation. In other words, I examine the methods of translations performed by extremist groups in the Middle East, notably in their magazines and propaganda videos. I also look at how news about ISIS is translated by major international media outlets, as well as the military and media tactics adopted by ISIS. </p>
<h2>Lone wolves: a new lethal tactic of extremism</h2>
<p>Although ISIS did not claim responsibility for the Edmonton attacks, police say an ISIS flag was found in one of the vehicles. Moreover, this type of attack bears the hallmarks of ISIS.</p>
<p>In a recorded audio message, Abu Muhammed al-Adnani, the now deceased voice of ISIS, urged sympathisers and supporters of the group all over the world to <a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/world/isis-urges-jihadists-to-attack-canadians-you-will-not-feel-secure-in-your-bedrooms">attack citizens of Western countries</a>: “Kill him in any manner or way, however it may be. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car.”</p>
<p><em>Rumiyah,</em> the ISIS online propaganda and recruitment magazine, includes a similar appeal to so-called “lone wolves” in the West to use knives and vehicles to kill.</p>
<p>The term <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/30/myth-lone-wolf-terrorist">lone wolf</a> refers to tactics used by armed groups as a retaliatory reaction against counter-terrorism measures implemented by states and security services. Individuals carry out attacks unilaterally without any clear organic or hierarchical connection with a group or faction.</p>
<p>Lone wolves constitute an extremely difficult challenge for security and intelligence services: they are relatively unpredictable, undetectable and effectively unstoppable.</p>
<p>However, using the term “lone wolf” for all acts by single individuals can be vague and confusing. The language we use to label things shapes our perceptions of the world and as a result influences attitudes and policies.</p>
<p>Jason Burke, a journalist who writes extensively on terrorism <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/30/myth-lone-wolf-terrorist">asserts that we are being lazy by using language like “lone wolves.”</a> He says our use of the term obscures the real nature of the threat against us, therefore making us all less safe. </p>
<p>Although the term refers to an individual acting without help from a specific group, I find it has also been used by western media outlets to downplay acts of terrorism committed by white, non-Muslim perpetrators. When the label “lone wolf” is used in those cases, it implies the perpetrator is not a terrorist. For example, the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/americas/quebec-mosque-shooting/index.html">Quebec mosque shooting and murders allegedly committed by a white supremacist</a> was described as a lone wolf attack.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190673/original/file-20171017-30379-1c65ylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190673/original/file-20171017-30379-1c65ylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190673/original/file-20171017-30379-1c65ylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190673/original/file-20171017-30379-1c65ylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190673/original/file-20171017-30379-1c65ylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190673/original/file-20171017-30379-1c65ylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190673/original/file-20171017-30379-1c65ylk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A man breaks down next to the caskets of three of the six victims of the Quebec City mosque shooting during funeral services last February.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)</span></span>
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<p>In the United States, the Trump administration has imposed travel restrictions on people from some Muslim countries and has used the Edmonton attacks as a pretext for tightening immigration policies and border control. Such sweeping statements about Muslims actually help ISIS in its propaganda war. </p>
<h2>Stop the tide of extremism among young people</h2>
<p>Terrorism begins with the sowing of hatred and extremism. Using state-of-the-art propaganda tactics, ISIS feeds on the idea that Muslims are persecuted in the West in order to motivate them to join its ranks in Iraq and Syria. The “westerner” is portrayed as a menace and as an enemy who wants to push Muslims to change their identities. This rhetoric is the catalyst of hatred and extremism. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/29/iraq-and-syria-how-many-foreign-fighters-are-fighting-for-isil/">The Soufan Group</a>, which provides strategic security intelligence services to governments and multinational organizations, says between 27,000 and 31,000 people globally have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State and other violent extremist groups in the region. </p>
<p>According to Canadian Security Intelligence Service, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/isis-iraq-syria-terror-tourism-1.3871902">the number of Canadians suspected of travelling abroad to fight for ISIS and other terrorist groups is about 180</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190671/original/file-20171017-30428-1h5ufzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190671/original/file-20171017-30428-1h5ufzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190671/original/file-20171017-30428-1h5ufzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190671/original/file-20171017-30428-1h5ufzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190671/original/file-20171017-30428-1h5ufzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190671/original/file-20171017-30428-1h5ufzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190671/original/file-20171017-30428-1h5ufzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People gather for a vigil to stand together in solidarity against violence after a terrorist incident in Edmonton, Alta., on Oct. 1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)</span></span>
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<p>In order to put an end to this hemorrhage, we must continue to work together to stop the tide of extremism among young people. It is necessary to focus on teaching youth the true understanding of our common values. </p>
<p>Furthermore, socioeconomic approaches need to be adopted to tackle the phenomenon of terrorism from the roots because policing and counterterrorism operations alone have proven to be insufficient. </p>
<p>Canadian authorities should put more efforts in facilitating and improving the lives of Muslim immigrants, not alienating them. This means redefining what it means to be Canadian in a way that is inclusive and which makes them feel proud of their heritage. It means displaying interest, respect and appreciation for others’ linguistic, cultural and religious traditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Houssem Ben Lazreg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent Edmonton attack raises questions about a new type of terrorism and the different methods required to stop it. Labelling such attacks as the work of a “lone wolf” obscures a larger problem.Houssem Ben Lazreg, PhD Candidate/ Teaching Assistant of French/ Freelance Translator/Interpreter, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627452016-09-27T09:56:49Z2016-09-27T09:56:49ZWhat drives lone offenders?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139285/original/image-20160926-31837-1izljmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's in the mind of a solo attacker?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-288681617/stock-photo-silhouette-rear-of-man-standing-hand-holding-gun-revolvers-and-eagle-fly-on-big-sunset-background.html">Man with gun image via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lone offender attacks – sometimes called “lone wolf” attacks – make headlines fairly regularly. It’s not just the single shooter <a href="https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2018/10/27/Mass-shootings-in-Pittsburgh-history-timeline-baumhammers-taylor-poplawski/stories/201810270082">killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue</a>, but also shootings <a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/the-strip/it-was-a-horror-show-mass-shooting-leaves-at-least-58-dead-515-wounded-on-las-vegas-strip/">at a Las Vegas music festival</a> and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/24/seattle-shooting-cascade-mall-burlington/91009272/">at Washington</a> and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/09/26/houston-police-gunman-shoots-several-people/91108136/">Texas shopping centers</a>. In <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36801671">Nice, France</a>; <a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/">Orlando, Florida</a>; and elsewhere, atrocities committed by individuals apparently acting alone have surprised and concerned the public and authorities alike.</p>
<p>Because just one person is at the center of the event, these sorts of attacks can seem more puzzling and be harder to explain than, say, bombings or shootings by organized terrorist groups. That also makes them more difficult to detect and prevent.</p>
<p>As law enforcement and military efforts attempt to reduce attacks from organized groups, lone offender attacks may become a more prevalent threat. My colleagues and I have worked to understand what we can about these attacks and the individuals who carry them out with the goal of helping to prevent them.</p>
<h2>A long history of solo attackers</h2>
<p>Although these recent attacks are troubling, the phenomenon of individual attackers acting largely alone is not new. In the late 1800s, <a href="http://mondediplo.com/2004/09/03anarchists">anarchists</a> (mainly Russian and European) were calling for individuals to target government, authorities and the bourgeois as a way to bring attention to their cause. They referred to this type of publicity-seeking violence as “<a href="http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/?p=23096">propaganda by the deed</a>.” Within a period of just seven years between 1894 and 1901, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/blood-rage-history-the-worlds-first-terrorists-1801195.html">lone anarchist attackers</a> had assassinated the ruling heads of state in France, Spain, Austria and Italy, and <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-william-mckinley-is-shot">a U.S. president</a>. </p>
<p>What is new is uncertainty about the attackers’ motivations. Some, like the truck driver in Nice, appear to be <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/lone-wolf-attacks-in-europe-are-nothing-of-the-sort/">inspired by terrorist organizations</a> such as the Islamic State group. Others, like most mass shooters, don’t have any obvious political or societal aim, though the attacks themselves do often sow fear. And some individuals will devise an attack and only then invoke an ideology or a “cause” as a justification, as some have suggested of the “last minute” 9-1-1 call by the Orlando nightclub shooter <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2016/06/lone_wolf_terrorists_like_omar_mateen_present_a_different_kind_of_threat.html">pledging his allegiance to ISIS</a>.</p>
<h2>Not every offender is really ‘alone’</h2>
<p>In attempting to study lone-offender attacks, it can be difficult to find scholarship and data, much less observe patterns in the events. One reason is that different researchers use <a href="https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/lone-actor-terrorism-definitional-workshop">different definitions</a>. Some research has included examination of attacks beyond just those conducted solely by one person. For example, some attackers have had help from accomplices. Some studies have researched only perpetrators who had a specific discernible motive (such as a political, social or ideological movement); others have included attackers with fuzzy blends of personal and wider motivations. <a href="https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/lone-actor-terrorism-definitional-workshop">Studies also differ</a> on whether they label someone as a “lone attacker” if they have had contact with an extremist group. </p>
<p>It can be more useful to look at features of the attack, rather than just debating whether a given attacker was a “lone” offender. This is commonly referred to as a “dimensional” approach because it looks at aspects, or dimensions, of an incident, each of which stretches <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/59/">along a range or spectrum</a>. Specifically, it looks at what my colleagues and I call “loneness,” “direction” and “motivation.” </p>
<p>Loneness describes the extent to which the attacker initiated, planned, prepared for and executed the attack independently, without assistance from anyone else. Elements of loneness include whether the perpetrator worked with any accomplices or contacted extremists, and to what degree anyone else was involved in any aspect of the attack. In Nice, for example, the attacker acted alone when he drove the truck through crowds of people but had logistical <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/21/europe/nice-france-attacker-plot-accomplices/">support and encouragement from a number of accomplices</a>. </p>
<p>Direction refers to the attacker’s independence and autonomy in making decisions about the attack. It describes not only external influences but also the degree to which outsiders – or the attacker himself – made choices about whether, by whom, when, where or how to attack. The “Underwear Bomber” in 2012 said he was directed to deploy a bomb on a U.S. airplane, but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/us/underwear-bomb-plot-detailed-in-court-filings.html">had discretion to choose the flight</a> and date. </p>
<h2>Understanding motivation</h2>
<p>Motivation is the dimension characterizing the extent to which the attack is primarily driven by a political, social or ideological grievance – or, by contrast, a personal one, such as revenge. Trying to determine what caused an individual to act a certain way is, of course, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10576100290101197">highly subjective</a> – and made more difficult if the attacker has not survived the incident. </p>
<p>Interpreting evidence on motivations can be tricky. Reasons perpetrators give for their attacks may or may not be the real reasons; at least, they may not tell the whole story. A safe approach is to start by assuming that the cause of the attack may not be as simple as it initially appears. It’s important to consider evidence of various political, social or ideological grievances, but also to look at anything that may have recently happened in the individual’s life to destabilize his or her usual ways of coping with stress. </p>
<p><a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12312">Multiple motivations</a> are the norm. Investigators, scholars and the public at large should not work too hard to find a single master explanation. Rather, they should keep in mind the full range of possible contributing motives, and remain mindful that the combination of these factors – rather than any single one – may have precipitated the attack.</p>
<h2>The role of mental illness</h2>
<p>Historically, researchers have not found a strong connection between <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/46/">mental illness and terrorist behavior</a>. Having a mental disorder doesn’t necessarily prevent a person from <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">planning and executing an attack</a>. And several studies of attack perpetrators have shown that people who attack alone are <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000102">perhaps 13 times more likely</a> to have significant psychological problems than those who conduct attacks as part of a group. </p>
<p>In one study, nearly one-third of 119 lone-actor terrorists investigated <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000102">appeared to have a mental disorder</a>. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">Studies of lone attackers of public figures</a> have similarly found that <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2007.01077.x">severe mental health problems are common</a>. Among <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17919154">24 attackers on European politicians</a> between 1990 and 2004, 10 were judged to be “psychotic.” And among <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">83 individuals known to have attacked</a>, or approached to attack, a prominent public official or public figure in the United States since 1949, 43 percent were experiencing delusions at the time of the incident.</p>
<p>That said, it remains important to understand that, as with any other potential factor, mental illness on its own rarely provides an overarching single-cause explanation for any particular attack or behavior. In determining a person’s risk of becoming a lone offender, the presence of a mental health diagnosis <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/60/">may be less important</a> than the person’s ability to form coherent intentions and engage in goal-directed behavior.</p>
<h2>What about ‘radicalization’ as a factor?</h2>
<p>Many lone attackers are not spotted by extremist groups, recruited and indoctrinated into a radical ideology. Even those who espouse extremist rhetoric, or claim allegiance to a cause, may not be true ideologues. Recall that lone terror attacks typically involve a blend of personal and ideological motives. </p>
<p>In the wake of an attack, especially if there is any evidence the subject was interested in an extremist group or ideas, a common reaction is to ask, “Where and how was he radicalized?” Some were not. <a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Edge_of_Violence_-_web.pdf">Fanatically embracing an ideology</a> is <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/56/">not a necessary condition</a> for <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192512112454416">terrorism or mass killing</a>. </p>
<p>People become involved in terrorism and violent extremist activity <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/testimony/41.pdf">in a variety of ways</a>, at <a href="http://www.terroristbehavior.com/blog/2014/6/28/from-profiles-to-pathways-and-from-roots-to-routes-perspectives-from-psychology-on-radicalization-into-terrorism">different points in time</a> and <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/55/">perhaps</a> in <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/56/">different</a> <a href="http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/57/">contexts</a>. Radicalizing by developing or adopting extremist beliefs that justify violence is one possible pathway into terrorism involvement, but it is certainly not the only one. </p>
<h2>Watching for signals</h2>
<p>Attackers – including lone attackers – often <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1520/JFS14457J">communicate about their intent</a> prior to their attacks, although they may not threaten the target directly. A study examining public information about lone-actor terrorists found that in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12312">nearly two-thirds of the cases</a> the perpetrators told family or friends about their intent to attack. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12312">more than half of the cases</a>, people other than friends and family knew about the actor’s “research, planning and/or preparation prior to the event itself.” Finding ways to <a href="https://www.ombudsassociation.org/IOA_Main/media/SiteFiles/2009Vol2Journal.pdf">encourage concerned people to come forward</a> and to facilitate reporting will be critical to long-term prevention efforts.</p>
<h2>Media coverage matters</h2>
<p>Media coverage alone does not cause acts of lone offender terrorism. The actors themselves are responsible. But research suggests that media coverage typically focuses much more heavily on attackers than victims, and that those <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf">media portrayals</a> can feed a temporary “<a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039994">contagion effect</a>” for <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/the-media-needs-to-stop-inspiring-copycat-murders-heres-how/266439/">mass shootings</a>. Researchers at Western New Mexico University found that the frequency of these shootings has <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf">increased in proportion to mass media</a> and social media coverage.</p>
<p>Considering that mass shooters (not necessarily just lone actor attackers) are often <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2016.02.002">seeking fame or notoriety</a>, and may desire to emulate a prior mass shooter, the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/stalking-threatening-and-attacking-public-figures-9780195326383?cc=us&lang=en">contagion effect</a> may not be terribly surprising. <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf">Media should report</a> these <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039994">events differently</a>, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/the-media-needs-to-stop-inspiring-copycat-murders-heres-how/266439">particularly by avoiding details</a> of the specific weapons used and methods of the attack, not displaying the attacker’s social media accounts, not immediately releasing the attacker’s name, and not interviewing victims and survivors when they are most vulnerable.</p>
<p>Terminology matters, too. Personally, I try to avoid characterizing solo actors as “lone wolves.” That’s not just because it isn’t always an accurate metaphor, but also because I don’t think glorifying the acts or actors is helpful. The <a href="http://www.ksat.com/news/fbi-to-media-dont-name-mass-shooters">FBI</a> and others (including the “<a href="http://www.dontnamethem.org/">Don’t Name Them</a>” campaign) have encouraged media to be cautious about how and how much they focus their coverage on the attacker specifically.</p>
<p>It is not always easy to “make sense” of lone-offender attacks. But by understanding their origins, elements and context, we can avoid misconceptions and more accurately describe the problem. That will be a key to helping detect and prevent these kinds of attacks.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published Sept. 27, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randy Borum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lone offender – sometimes called “lone wolf” – attacks may become a more prevalent threat. What can we understand about them and the people who carry them out?Randy Borum, Professor of Intelligence Studies, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/625942016-09-20T01:11:19Z2016-09-20T01:11:19ZPsychology expert: Why extremists use violence in their quest for significance<p>The recent attack in New York, which left 29 persons wounded, the bombings in New Jersey and the knife attack in Minnesota serve as a grim reminder that this year of blood and fury carries on. </p>
<p>“We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/de-blasio-we-have-every-reason-to-believe-this-was-an-act-of-terror/2016/09/19/22d7ce30-7e91-11e6-ad0e-ab0d12c779b1_video.html">stated Monday afternoon</a> in reference to the bombings and the suspected perpetrator’s Ahmad Khan Rahami’s arrest.</p>
<p>Once again, we confront mayhem for no apparent reason. Attacks in diverse world locations including <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34818994">Paris</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869985">Brussels</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/specials/san-bernardino-shooting">San Bernardino</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/29/europe/turkey-istanbul-ataturk-airport-attack/">Istanbul</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/18/world/middleeast/baghdad-attacks-isis-map.html?_r=0">Baghdad</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35309195">Jakarta</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/">Orlando</a> and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/02/asia/bangladesh-dhaka-attack-victims/">Dhaka</a> cumulatively compound the sense that the world is chaotic and unsafe. The idea that disaster can strike at any moment anywhere just at someone’s unfathomable whim increasingly insinuates itself into people’s minds. </p>
<p>Though incomprehensible to most, these instances of seemingly rampant violence have a compelling rhyme and reason to the perpetrators. They carry out their carnage in full premeditation and after careful preparation. Theirs isn’t crime of passion, or case of temporary insanity. It is, instead, a deliberately chosen path grounded in a confidently held worldview.</p>
<p>But to what end? And why through violence? </p>
<p>Based on my research, violent extremism typically requires the presence of three elements that jointly create the terrorist mindset: what I call the “N-triad of radicalization.” The three N’s are need, narrative and network.</p>
<p>The first N is <a href="http://www.gelfand.umd.edu/Terrorism%20Self%20Love%20Story.pdf">individuals’ need</a>, which creates the quest to satisfy it by appropriate means. In the case of violent extremism, that need is one for personal significance, the desire to matter in one’s own eyes and those of significant others. Simply put, it is the universal yearning to have respect. </p>
<p>The second N is the ideological narrative that justifies violence and depicts it as an effective and desirable way to gratify the need. </p>
<p>The third N is the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12163/full">social network</a> that validates the ideology and rewards its adherents.</p>
<h2>Human quest for significance</h2>
<p>The need, and consequent quest, for significance is typically aroused by a loss or lack of significance in the individual’s life and an opportunity to regain it. The loss may come from personal failure or from an affront to social identity: for instance, an insult to one’s identity as a Muslim, a discrimination against one’s identity as a Palestinian or a disdain aimed at one’s identity as an American. </p>
<p>Personal failure motivates individuals to latch on to their collective identity because it offers them a way to regain their significance by acting on behalf of a collective cause. Indeed, many of the recent attackers were likely unhappy about their personal lives, felt down on their luck and disrespected. </p>
<p>Mohamed Bouhlel, the perpetrator of the July 14 Nice attack, was in the process of getting divorced when he carried out the killings. He had financial problems, and his wife and children refused to see him. His psychological makeup might have been unstable and volatile. According to <a href="http://time.com/4409306/france-nice-attack-terrorist/">his father</a>, Bouhlel suffered a serious nervous breakdown when he was younger. He also had multiple previous run-ins with the police for minor charges such as assault and theft.</p>
<p>The San Bernardino attackers, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, seemed happy by most <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35004024">accounts</a> from friends and relatives.</p>
<p>They had just had a baby, and Farook was making a decent salary at work. However, shortly before the attack, Farook told family members that his coworkers had mocked his beard. There were also indications that Farook may have had an unstable <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35004024">family background</a>: His mother filed multiple restraining orders against his father, calling him a mentally ill alcoholic who was continually threatening violence against himself and others.</p>
<p>Akhmed Chatayev, a Chechen, the ringleader of the Istanbul airport <a href="http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/akhmed-chatayev-ahmed-asylum-austria-chataev-istanbul-airport-bombing-terror-attack-isis-russia/">attack</a>, was physically disabled: He had only one arm, with sources suggesting that the other was chopped off as part of a torture regimen when he was in prison. He fled Russia as a political prisoner a decade before the Istanbul attack, and subsequently struggled to avoid being extradited back to Russia, where he feared he would likely face an unfair trial, torture and ill treatment.</p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12312/full">A recent study</a> of 119 lone-actor militants revealed that more than one-third of them had been diagnosed with mental disorders. Many lived in social isolation. Two-thirds lived alone or away from home, and 69 percent either had never married or had split from their spouse.</p>
<p>Issues of failure, rejection and humiliation surface in nearly all known cases of extremist violence carried out in recent years. </p>
<p>The typical attacker experiences a sense of profound insignificance, and feels mistreated and denigrated by society. The Copenhagen Brothers gang, whose member Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein carried out the café and synagogue <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/terrorists-descent-into-violence-had-roots-in-a-copenhagen-gang/2015/02/16/cc236992-b618-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html">attacks</a> in the Danish <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/17/europe/denmark-copenhagen-gunman/">capital</a>, was made up of embittered young men who felt rejected by society. </p>
<p>Cherif and Said Kouachi, perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, were often unemployed and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/world/europe/paris-terrorism-brothers-said-cherif-kouachi-charlie-hebdo.html?_r=0">immersed in a life</a> of petty crime and drugs before embracing <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/13/world/kouachi-brothers-radicalization/">radical Islam</a>. <a href="http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/04/19/marathon-bombing-suspect-i-dont-have-a-single-american-friend/">Tamerlan Tsarnaev</a>, the older, more influential of the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon massacre, was rejected by the local state college and had no American friends. His <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/jahars-world-20130717">hopes</a> of making the U.S. Olympic boxing team were shattered, and at the time of the bombing, he was an unemployed stay-at-home dad while his wife worked 70 hours a week.</p>
<h2>Narrative</h2>
<p>The sense of personal inadequacy renders such individuals acutely vulnerable to ideological narratives that justify violence against the alleged detractors of their social group, ethnicity or religion. The narrative’s allure is in its promise of a hero or martyr status, if only they are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause. Such appeal may work also on individuals who are doing well by normal standards. They too may find irresistible the glamour and glory of violence for a cause.</p>
<p>A violence-promoting narrative can thus inspire many to take up arms. Yet, it works best on individuals whose sense of personal insignificance makes them especially vulnerable.</p>
<h2>The allure of violence</h2>
<p>The role of violence as a unique path to personal significance is worth emphasizing. It has an instinctual, primordial appeal. In the evolutionary world, violence has been the ubiquitous mode of settling conflicts and establishing dominance. It is <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.387.7053&rep=rep1&type=pdf">through violence</a>, or the potential for violence, that animals construct their hierarchies, children settle their disputes and sophisticated nations secure their standing in the international pecking order. </p>
<p>Though images of death and destruction wreaked by violence may inspire generations that suffered its consequences to <a href="http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/pacifism/ww2-pacifism.html">seek peace</a>, subsequent generations to whom the lessons of history are pallid and remote may be vulnerable to the seductive appear of violence.</p>
<p>Because of its directness, immediacy and primordial nature, violence has a special status as a way to achieve significance that often outshines the other methods. Redirecting the quest for significance to constructive, pro-social activities requires thoughtful consideration of how to make those activities appealing to those in search of significance.</p>
<h2>Network</h2>
<p>Finally, social networks impact individuals’ readiness to kill and die on the altar of a cause. This is because social networks of individuals’ friends and relatives serve <a href="http://web.comhem.se/u52239948/08/deutsch55.pdf">two functions</a>. The first function is informational. Simply, the networks validate the person’s views and give them an aura of reality. The second function is motivational, in that by serving the group’s <a href="http://rcgd.isr.umich.edu/news/Atran-et-al-Science-Mag-240807.pdf">sacred values</a>, individuals receive considerable respect and admiration from other group members.</p>
<p>The role of violent networks has been compellingly <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Terror-Networks-Marc-Sageman/dp/0812238087">documented</a>. Even the so-called “lone wolves” more often <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leaderless-Jihad-Networks-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0812240650/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51JWnZIp7hL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR216%2C320_&psc=1&refRID=1MJ0VTBQFNYGFFKYGQ0K">constitute</a> “wolf packs,” or groups of men who psych each other up to a state of frenzy. And even in the absence of a physical network, there is invariably a virtual or imagined network. This is an awareness that one acts on behalf of a group that venerates one’s actions, and claims ownership over the exploits of its “heroic” foot soldiers.</p>
<p>Though it might appear random and haphazard, the violence on streets of the world’s cities is psychologically coherent. The combination of individuals’ needs, narratives and networks forms a combustible mixture ready to explode in mayhem and murder. Taking all three elements into account may offer a reasonable, science-based approach to preventing and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/home-jihadi-denmark-radical-islamic-extremism-aarhus-model-scandinavia">reversing radicalization</a>. It may be key to interventions and programs that can stem the tide of violent extremism that seriously threatens the world’s security and stability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arie Kruglanski receives funding from Office of Naval Research, Department of Homeland Security, National Science Foundation </span></em></p>A year of violence continues with bombs in NYC and a stabbing in Minnesota, leaving many asking, why? A psychologist explains what research has revealed about the minds of violent extremists.Arie Kruglanski, Professor of Psychology, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/634872016-08-31T02:15:18Z2016-08-31T02:15:18ZWant to prevent lone wolf terrorism? Promote a ‘sense of belonging’<p>This September, as they start the school year, French children aged 14 years old and upwards are going to get <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/10/french-14-year-olds-to-have-school-lessons-on-surviving-terroris/">lessons</a> on how to deal with a terrorism attack on their school. Meanwhile, the debate over the ban on wearing burkinis and whether they are, <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-26/vive-le-burkini-french-court-suspects-ban-swimwear">in the words</a> of France’s prime minister, “a political sign of religious proselytising” continues. </p>
<p>The big question, however is this: Why are we seeing a rash of these attacks in Europe and especially in France, and are such measures effective in countering them? </p>
<p>What have we learned from the horrors of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, the murder of 130 people in and around Paris last November, the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice and the killing of an 85-year-old priest inside of a church in Normandy? </p>
<p>Examining the reactions of French authorities, we can conclude there are only limited actions that can be taken to prevent such atrocities. </p>
<p>Security can been heightened by extending <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/20/frances-national-assembly-votes-to-extend-state-of-emergency">the state of emergency</a> that it declared last November. Intelligence efforts can be redoubled. Such efforts are raising concern about <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/22/france-prolonged-emergency-state-threatens-rights">civil liberties being curtailed</a>. But the Nice attack is also a dire warning that these measures aren’t effective as a means of protecting citizens from continued attacks. </p>
<p>The point is that none of the above policies could have prevented Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel and Abdelmalik Petitjean from carrying out their violent actions. Thousands if not millions of people living in Europe have similar profiles. Tunisian or Algerian descent and French citizenship are not enough to tip off authorities that a person could run over 84 people with a truck or slit the throat of a priest. </p>
<p>So how can we hope to prevent future attacks? We need to change our focus, in my opinion, to examining these perpetrators’ “sense of belonging” rather than looking for reasons to detain or expel them because they don’t belong.</p>
<h2>A Canadian case study</h2>
<p>A number of years ago, while working at the <a href="http://www.inrs.ca/anglais">National Institute for Scientific Research in Montréal</a>, I was invited to join a research team studying the integration of refugees and immigrants into Québec society.</p>
<p>This led me to work on research projects that looked at a broad range of questions – from why people <a href="https://www.mrif.gouv.qc.ca/document/spdi/fonddoc/FDOC_rapp_2777_rapport_annuel_1993_1994.pdf">claim refugee status</a> to how immigrants use <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276435195_Book_Review_Arguing_and_Justifying_Assessing_the_Convention_Refugees%27_Choice_of_Moment_Motive_and_Host_Country;%20https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/IJSLL/article/view/17255/13563">storytelling</a> to talk about their displacement and assimilation into Canada. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134510/original/image-20160817-3587-17gljfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134510/original/image-20160817-3587-17gljfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134510/original/image-20160817-3587-17gljfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134510/original/image-20160817-3587-17gljfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134510/original/image-20160817-3587-17gljfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134510/original/image-20160817-3587-17gljfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134510/original/image-20160817-3587-17gljfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from a play by Lebanese Canadian writer Wajdi Moawad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendies_(play)#/media/File:Incendies_(pi%C3%A8ce_de_Mouawad)_au_th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre_Lise-Gu%C3%A8vremont.JPG">Nicolas M. Perrault</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My first project was focused upon immigrant literary works – especially novels and short stories – that were a largely untapped source of information to help officials understand the complex process of integrating into Quebec society, and in particular, as a way to understand relationships between immigrants and individuals from the host country. </p>
<p>There’s a pretty large body of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Voices-Contemporary-Canadian-Francophone-Literature/dp/073911879X">so-called immigrant literature in Québec</a>. Interestingly, many of these narratives include graphic and sometimes even pornographic descriptions of encounters between native-born and immigrant protagonists. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.sogides.com/medias/3/10/ext_9782892953206.pdf">A broad reading</a> of these stories made me realize that developing relationships with friends and lovers contributed to the migrant’s “sense of belonging.” They helped him or her to forget their country of origin and forge a new beginning in the host society.</p>
<p>In fact, I came to believe that these immigrants’ ability to adapt had something to do with the very process of exchange. Or, put another way, the many acts of giving and receiving that they committed each day helped them to feel connected to society. </p>
<h2>Measuring belonging</h2>
<p>In order to evaluate this process of adaptation, I turned to work by French biblical scholars called the <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2924040">Groupe d'Entrevernes,</a> which focuses upon how narratives “make sense”: that is, how a story creates meaning in the context of the text, but also in regards to the world to which it refers. </p>
<p>This approach focuses on looking for meaning by analyzing particular actions, notably “who does what to whom where.” So in the case of immigrant literature, a group of us looked in minute detail at the complex interactions between characters, with special focus upon how relationships begin and end, and what is gained in the process. We also assessed characters’ attitudes prior to and after each interaction, with an eye to understanding the effect of the exchange. </p>
<p>Our goal was to assess which specific actions help foster a sense of belonging, in a new country and which alienate the character from his or her society. </p>
<p>The signing of a lease, the acquisition of immigrant status (whether a work visa or a green card) or being hired for a job all foster a sense of belonging. Being kicked out of an apartment, divorced or deported are all examples of loss of belonging.</p>
<h2>Implications for policymakers</h2>
<p>The advantage of research like this for a case like Nice is that it forces the investigator to examine all of the concrete details of the perpetrators’ lives leading up to the horrific event, rather than just focusing upon the act of violence. </p>
<p>It’s not sufficient to know that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had a violent relationship with his wife, or that Abdelmalik Petitjean visited Turkey just prior to entering a church in Normandy. </p>
<p>What’s more important is to understand what they wanted for themselves in the longer term. As difficult as it now seems in light of their murderous actions, we would gain a lot by undertaking meticulous investigations into these individuals’ sense that they didn’t belong in France, and that they had to destroy what it represents. </p>
<p>By creating concrete conditions for different communities to feel they belong, policymakers can help their diverse populations feel connected to, and thus protective of, their societies. </p>
<p>Many of <a href="http://www.vox.com/world/2016/7/15/12198266/nice-attack-lone-wolf">the analyses</a> of recent terrorist events have focused upon the “lone-wolf” quality of the perpetrators. These lone wolves are difficult to predict, because they are acting independently, and without any contact with extremist organizations or individuals. </p>
<p>The work of policymakers, then, is to figure out how to prevent these individuals from acting impulsively, on the basis of some unpredictable trigger. My sense is that the only way to do this is to build a sense of belonging that will prevent them from feeling destructive. If they feel alienated from their society and feel they don’t belong there, then they can also feel that other people deserve to suffer or die.</p>
<p>Following the logic of this approach, we can try to figure out which actions serve to reinforce belonging and which hinder it and then develop policies that build on the positive rather than the purely negative. </p>
<p>Our research in Quebec indicated that most of these actions are quite simple and achievable. They range from providing federal funds for ethnic celebrations and translations for pamphlets about available social services to encouraging local tolerance for so-called “foreign” customs such as the wearing of burkinis (something that has not happened in <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20160830-frances-burkini-bans-grave-illegal-breach-basic-freedoms-un-stupid">France</a>) or Sikh turbans. In the Quebec example, our reading of the literature also indicated that undue bureaucratic wrangling that hinders the process of procuring basic necessities, like a driver’s license, or that made access to social services such as health care or daycare difficult, can become sources of frustration and alienation. </p>
<p>At the same time, it is crucial to explain which of these customs can lead to severe punishment in the host country. Such actions as Latin Americans shooting off guns during parties or immigrants from Africa and the Middle East sending children abroad for <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/fgm-rates-have-doubled-us-2004-304773">female genital mutilation</a> can become grounds for serous punishments.</p>
<p>Most importantly, our research suggested that successful integration generally occurs through individual incentive and personal relationships, fostered, whenever possible, by the community or the government. The <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-18.7">1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act</a> formalized a policy to encourage multicultural diversity and develop a sense of tolerance through recognition and understanding. One result of our own research was to help contribute to a higher profile for the <a href="https://www.immigration-quebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/home.html">Ministry of Immigration and Cultural Communities</a> and to support their championing of diversity and inclusion.</p>
<p>I may have traveled to Nice this summer with my family in order to celebrate Bastille Day, because it’s a beautiful setting, a city where we dream of the passion, luxury and the sultry pleasures of the French Riviera. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel may have decided to target those same celebrations for exactly the same reasons, because while we might feel like sharing in that sense of belonging, he most certainly didn’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert F. Barsky receives funding from Vanderbilt University, and has undertaken immigration research funded by the governments of Canada and Québec.</span></em></p>How literary analysis led one scholar to develop a theory of how immigrants become connected to their host society – and therefore unlikely to attack it.Robert F. Barsky, Professor of English and French Literatures, and Professor of Law, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/609952016-06-16T18:01:20Z2016-06-16T18:01:20ZDisrupting pro-ISIS online ‘ecosystems’ could help thwart real-world terrorism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126867/original/image-20160616-19932-1k1aa25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Schematic diagram of an aggregate made up of linked users, with the mathematical equation that describes this online pro-ISIS ecology.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neil Johnson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Supporters of the Islamic State, or ISIS, around the world gather online, becoming members of virtual communities in much the same way any of us might join online groups focused on some common interest. The videos, audio messages, letters, chatter and know-how that they then share are much more sinister than typical online hobbies, though. They <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/06/12/president-obama-tragic-shooting-orlando">may ultimately inspire terrorist acts</a> by individuals who have no prior history of extremism, no formal cell membership, no direct links to leadership.</p>
<p>How does this online support for ISIS manage to not just survive but thrive – even in the face of plenty of online anti-ISIS opposition?</p>
<p>The importance and urgency of this question couldn’t be greater, particularly given the uncertainties surrounding recent terrorist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/us/chattanooga-gunman-mohammod-abdulazeez.html?_r=0">attacks</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_linked_to_ISIL">“inspired” individuals</a> in the United States, as in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/us/politics/president-obama-terrorism-threat-speech-oval-office.html">San Bernardino</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/orlando-shooting-2016">Orlando</a>.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I at the University of Miami’s <a href="http://www.as.miami.edu/research/research-news/connecting-the-dots-and-finding-the-patterns-in-big-data-.html">Complexity Initiative</a> decided to tackle this question of what makes pro-ISIS online support tick. <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6292/1459">By intensively analyzing online data</a> we’ve been collecting continuously since 2014, our goal was to decode the online “ecology” of ISIS supporters. Could we even go a step further and use what we learned to make accurate predictions about real-world attacks?</p>
<h2>Online fieldwork: hunting out the data</h2>
<p>The key challenge we faced as researchers was how to obtain the data. Many social media sites quickly shut down any pro-ISIS activity, meaning we found negligible amounts of pro-ISIS activity on Facebook, for instance. </p>
<p>But when we looked at other social media sites around the world, we found that some were slower to shut down pro-ISIS activity – probably because finding such aggregates and shutting them down requires significant amounts of resources and time. We assembled a multi-disciplinary team with expertise across languages.</p>
<p>After many dead ends, we found that the social media site <a href="https://vk.com">VKontakte</a> was ideal for our pro-ISIS analysis. It is the most popular online social networking service within central Europe and has more than 350 million users worldwide. Being based physically in Russia, it has a high concentration of users of Chechen origin in the Caucasus region, near ISIS’ main area of influence in the Levant. And ISIS is known to have spread significant amounts of propaganda <a href="http://linkis.com/dmFgu">among the Russian-speaking population</a>.</p>
<p>We started off by manually identifying relevant pro-ISIS narratives using hashtags in multiple languages – for example, expressions of support or positive references to particular ISIS actions. Then we’d trace them to the underlying online “aggregates.” An aggregate is an ad hoc virtual community that anyone can create on social media sites – imagine a group on Facebook focused on a particular sports team. Users can become members if they’re fans, and then share significant information and material about that team.</p>
<p>The same applies for pro-ISIS aggregates, but now in support of ISIS rather than a sports team. To be included on our pro-ISIS list, an aggregate had to explicitly express its support for ISIS, publish ISIS-related news or propaganda and call for jihad in the name of ISIS.</p>
<p>We then developed software Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that expanded our list of aggregates by means of automated searches on hashtags or relevant words. For example, we might have initially found an aggregate called ILiveForISIS manually. We’d scour ILiveForISIS for keywords and content that the APIs could then use to search and uncover new aggregates. </p>
<p>When the APIs eventually started turning up ILiveForISIS together with other pro-ISIS aggregates already on our list, we would know that we were reaching closure. At that stage, while not perfect, we were confident that we had captured a high proportion of what actually existed online.</p>
<p>Eventually we found 196 pro-ISIS aggregates involving 108,086 individual followers between January 1 and August 31, 2015. Membership ebbed and flowed each day; on the most active day, the total number of follower links reached 134,857.</p>
<p>This process of data collection, analysis and modeling provided us with a living road map of online pro-ISIS activity. Next, we needed to develop a mathematical theory for pro-ISIS online support that was in good quantitative agreement with the raw online data. </p>
<h2>An online ecosystem of pro-ISIS sentiment</h2>
<p><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6292/1459">Our research revealed an ultrafast ecology of self-organized aggregates</a> that share operational information and propaganda, and whose rapid evolution drives the online support.</p>
<p>During a typical period of a few weeks, aggregates would appear and disappear sporadically, with their total number changing relatively slowly. Over a particular set of months, however, we found that the rate at which new aggregates appeared started to increase very rapidly – in technical terms, it diverged. Its peak coincided almost exactly with the unexpected onset of real-world attacks on Kobane in Syria by ISIS fighters.</p>
<p>Curiously, we had found a similar divergence in the rate at which new aggregates appeared just before the onset of another unexpected burst of events (this time, non-ISIS civil unrest events) in Brazil in 2013. This suggested to us that an explosion in the rate at which new aggregates appear in the online world can act as an indicator of conditions being right for a burst of attacks in the real world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126837/original/image-20160616-19949-qfbhi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126837/original/image-20160616-19949-qfbhi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126837/original/image-20160616-19949-qfbhi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126837/original/image-20160616-19949-qfbhi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126837/original/image-20160616-19949-qfbhi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126837/original/image-20160616-19949-qfbhi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126837/original/image-20160616-19949-qfbhi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Example of the aggregate size (i.e., number of members of an aggregate) as time increases, for three example aggregates. Below is the equation we derived that describes these aggregate dynamics.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also found that the evolution of this aggregate ecosystem follows a rather precise mathematical form. As the size – the number of members – of each aggregate evolved over time, it produced a familiar shark-fin shape. It’s the same shark-fin shape we find in the natural sciences when groups of interacting objects (particles, animals) follow a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2006.02.042">process of coalescence and fragmentation</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, these groups of ISIS supporters come together (coalescence) and break up (fragmentation) like fish in schools or birds in a flock might. There’s one difference, though. When they break up, they fragment completely because some external, anti-ISIS entity or online moderator has shut them down. That’s why you see the abrupt drop-off like the edge of a shark fin.</p>
<h2>From math model to real-world disruption</h2>
<p>These pro-ISIS aggregates are leaderless, self-organized entities that change rapidly over time. But now that we’ve identified a rather precise mathematical equation that describes their evolution, we can start to think about how to intervene.</p>
<p>To start, the main implication of our work is that once you identify the aggregates, you have your hand on the pulse of the entire organization. Instead of having to sift through millions of internet users and tracking specific individuals, an anti-ISIS agency can simply follow the relatively small number of aggregates to gauge what is happening in terms of hard-core global ISIS support.</p>
<p>As these ISIS supporters coalesce over time into aggregates, anti-ISIS agencies have an opportunity to step in and break up small aggregates before they develop into larger, potentially powerful ones. One concern is that if anti-ISIS agencies – be they <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33220037">government-based</a>, private hackers or online moderators – aren’t active enough in their countermeasures, pro-ISIS support could quickly grow from a number of smaller aggregates into one superaggregate.</p>
<p>Our model also warns that if aggregate shutdown rates drop below a certain critical value, any piece of pro-ISIS material will then be able to spread globally across the internet. A low shutdown rate allows an aggregate time to internally develop ideas, content and plans. Then when it’s eventually shut down and the members scatter, they take this content with them to the new aggregates they eventually join.</p>
<p>Our analysis of the data suggests that the rate of creation of aggregates proliferates in a specific mathematical way preceding bursts of real-world attacks. This means monitoring such proliferation can help predict when conditions are favorable for future real-world attacks. If anti-ISIS trackers are on the lookout, a big online surge can therefore be an early warning that could be used along with additional intelligence to thwart a planned terrorist action.</p>
<p>But perhaps most importantly in light of the massacre in Orlando, our research also suggests that any online “lone wolf” actor will truly be alone only for short periods of time. Since we observed that people with serious interest in ISIS online tend to coalesce into these aggregate groups, any such lone wolf was likely either recently in an aggregate or will soon be in one.</p>
<p>As for the future, even if pro-ISIS support moves onto the <a href="https://theconversation.com/securing-web-browsing-protecting-the-tor-network-56840">dark net</a> where open access is not possible, or if a new entity beyond ISIS emerges, our results should still be relevant. The mechanism we’ve identified and theory we’ve developed appear to capture a basic process of human online behavior. Going forward, it can be used to help describe not only pro-ISIS online activity, but also that of any future extremist group or organization.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was carried out by members of the new Complexity Initiative in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami. Neil Johnson received partial support for preliminary work from Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) under grant D12PC00285 and recent funding under National Science Foundation (NSF) grant CNS1500250 and Air Force (AFOSR) grant 16RT0367.</span></em></p>A new mathematical model of ISIS supporters’ online behavior provides insights into how cyberactivity relates to real-world attacks.Neil Johnson, Professor of Physics, University of MiamiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/467462015-10-04T23:40:19Z2015-10-04T23:40:19ZParramatta shooting: how much do we really know about ‘lone-wolf’ terrorists?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97129/original/image-20151004-23058-fhtqac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">15-year-old Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar killed a NSW police force employee on Friday.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the greatest perceived threats to national security is the “lone wolf” – the single attacker who is not part of a terrorist network. Dramatic acts of lone-wolf terrorism have <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34055713">become</a> <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33179019">familiar</a>.</p>
<p>In the latest attack, 15-year-old <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parramatta-shooting-gunman-a-15yearold-boy-police-sources-say-20151002-gk0flb.html">Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar</a> shot dead police employee Curtis Cheng at close range outside the New South Wales police headquarters in Parramatta last Friday. Farhad continued to fire his handgun before being shot dead by officers who responded to the shooting. Police believe he acted alone and that his actions were <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parramatta-shooting-andrew-scipione-says-teen-shooting-linked-to-terrorism-20151003-gk0h73.html">politically motivated</a>.</p>
<p>There is still much we do not know about lone-wolf terrorism. While this is a growing field of research, to date there are only a handful of empirically based academic studies. But this much we do know.</p>
<h2>Mixing personal vendettas with political grievances</h2>
<p>Much of the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-siege-gunman-man-monis-was-a-radicialised-terrorist-us-expert-says-20150824-gj6wlm.html">inquest</a> into the Sydney siege has centred on the question of whether Man Haron Monis had a political grievance or was primarily motivated by personal issues. But this is a false dichotomy. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93485/original/image-20150901-25756-bb1hnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93485/original/image-20150901-25756-bb1hnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93485/original/image-20150901-25756-bb1hnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93485/original/image-20150901-25756-bb1hnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93485/original/image-20150901-25756-bb1hnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93485/original/image-20150901-25756-bb1hnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93485/original/image-20150901-25756-bb1hnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eric Rudolph saw himself enmeshed in a greater struggle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Tami Chappell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lone wolves combine various political complaints with any number of highly personal vendettas in complex ways. This is a signature of lone-wolf terrorism that distinguishes loners from organised terrorists who share collective grievances. Sometimes politics is the dominant theme of the loner’s radicalisation; other times, politics is a submerged theme. The same seesaw applies to personal grievances. </p>
<p>For lone-wolf terrorists, assigning motives in clear-cut terms is therefore problematic.</p>
<p>Lone wolves see themselves as being enmeshed in greater struggles that give meaning to their actions and provide a sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness. “A soldier at war” is how Olympic Park bomber <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/abortion-clinic-bomber-gets-life/">Eric Rudolph</a> put it. The attack is the catalyst to achievement of their mission to force society to see the world from their perspective. <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/abortion_doctor_shot_by_oregon.html">Shelley Shannon</a> described her attempted assassination of abortion provider George Tiller as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The most holy, most righteous thing I’ve ever done.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the same time, lone-wolf terrorism is often also a deeply personal quest for belonging and a clamour for attention. As British <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nail-bomber-david-copeland-solitary-5037284">nail bomber</a> David Copeland famously stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If no-one remembers who you were, you never existed.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Affinity with online sympathisers</h2>
<p>It is commonly assumed that lone wolves have a critical advantage in avoiding detection because they do not communicate with others regarding their intentions. As former US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano once <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WN/homeland-security-lone-wolves-circulating-us/story?id=10030050">noted</a>, lone-wolf terrorist attacks are “the most challenging” from a law-enforcement perspective:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… because by definition they’re not conspiring. They’re not using the phones, the computer networks … they’re not talking with others.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It appears, however, that they are doing precisely that. Interaction with the external environment plays an important role in the identity shift that lone wolves experience. While the affinity with extremist organisations among lone-wolf terrorists is declining, they are seeking ideological direction through venues other than organisations – that is, via networks of anonymous online activists. </p>
<p>The shift from an affinity with extremist groups to an affinity with unidentified online sympathisers is one of the most important transformations in the history of lone-wolf terrorism. It has expanded the base of support for the strategy of leaderless resistance wherein lone individuals operate independently of any hierarchical command.</p>
<p>Neo-Nazi <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2014/05/16/keith-luke-neo-nazi-suicide_n_5334411.html?ir=Australia">Keith Luke</a>, convicted of killing two and raping a woman, had no affinity for any extremist group. He had no friends and spent most of his time alone. He lived with his mother and had held a job for only one day of his life. But Luke did have an affinity with online sympathisers, none of whom he knew outside of cyberspace. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://theconversation.com/radicalisation-and-the-lone-wolf-what-we-do-and-dont-know-35540">researchers</a> challenge the assumption that the internet promotes self-radicalisation without face-to-face contact with another person. They argue that the emotional appeal to personal identity and group solidarity are more significant than online activity. </p>
<p>This may generally be the case, but Luke puts the lie to that test. He developed his beliefs solely by reading internet postings on <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2009/01/23/website-read-accused-racial-killer-encouraged-lone-wolf-murders">Podblanc</a>, a neo-Nazi website.</p>
<h2>Copycats</h2>
<p>Evidence of a copycat effect was <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248691.pdf">found</a> in one-third of lone-wolf cases. In 2009, Carlos Bledsoe <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/25/arkansas.recruiter.shooting/">attacked</a> the Little Rock Army recruiting centre, killing one soldier and wounding another. Bledsoe became the model for Nidal Hasan’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22wright.html?_r=0">copycat attack</a> on Fort Hood five months later, which killed 13 and injured 30. Hasan inspired Naser Jason Abdo’s <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/naser-jaon-abdo-ft-hood-plotter-life-prison/story?id=16978363">attempted bombing</a> at Fort Hood in 2011.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93486/original/image-20150901-25756-1lkjvke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93486/original/image-20150901-25756-1lkjvke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93486/original/image-20150901-25756-1lkjvke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93486/original/image-20150901-25756-1lkjvke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93486/original/image-20150901-25756-1lkjvke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93486/original/image-20150901-25756-1lkjvke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93486/original/image-20150901-25756-1lkjvke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nidal Hasan’s attack on the Fort Hood army base inspired, and was inspired by, similar attacks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>News coverage of Hosam Smadi’s <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/november/terror-plot-foiled">plot</a> to bomb a Dallas skyscraper in 2009 motivated <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/dallas/press-releases/2011/dl022411.htm">Khalid Aldawsari</a> to research the feasibility of carrying a backpack bomb into a Dallas nightclub in 2011.</p>
<p>In a copycat of government scientist Bruce Ivins’ 2001 <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/29/nation/la-na-anthrax-ivins-20110529">anthrax attacks</a>, anti-abortion extremist Clayton Waagner <a href="http://www.salon.com/2003/12/11/waagner_3/">mailed 554 letters</a> to abortion clinics across the US in 2001, each containing white flour and an anthrax threat. His letters disrupted clinic operations, temporarily shutting down hundreds of abortion clinics. </p>
<p>What distinguishes these lone-wolf copycats from traditional criminal copycats is motive. Rather than (merely) seeking fame and notoriety, the lone-wolf terrorists imitated other lone wolves to make a political point. By turning political causes into violent action, lone-wolf terrorists can become role models for others who are sympathetic to those causes.</p>
<p>This is where lone-wolf terrorists appear to differ from Vester Flanagan, who <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/manager-virginia-tv-station-workers-fatally-shot-air-33328428">shot dead</a> two journalists on live TV in Virginia. Flanagan reportedly wrote in a 23-page fax to ABC News that the Charleston church shooting in June triggered his attack and that he put down a deposit for a gun two days after the Charleston shooting. He expressed admiration for the shooters who massacred students at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech.</p>
<p>Unlike the lone wolves, though, Flanagan had no apparent political grievance.</p>
<h2>Broadcasting intent</h2>
<p>Many lone wolves broadcast their intent before they strike. The purpose is to seek renown for their cause. They use spoken statements, letters, manifestos, email messages, texting and videotaped proclamations, similar to the martyrdom videos that members of al-Qaeda and Islamic State upload to the internet.</p>
<p>Lone wolves tend to share several commonalities, but broadcasting intent may be the most important commonality from the standpoint of prevention. If lone wolves announce their violent intentions beforehand, then presumably steps can be taken to stop them.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93488/original/image-20150901-25759-aslwbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93488/original/image-20150901-25759-aslwbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93488/original/image-20150901-25759-aslwbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93488/original/image-20150901-25759-aslwbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93488/original/image-20150901-25759-aslwbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93488/original/image-20150901-25759-aslwbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93488/original/image-20150901-25759-aslwbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jared Loughner broadcasted his murderous intent before committing a mass shooting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jared Loughner’s attempted assassination of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords, which left six people dead and another 12 wounded, is a case in point. Loughner <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/08/arizona.shootings.suspect.social/">broadcasted his intent</a> to commit terrorism with a flagrant sense of exhibitionism meant to attract attention and satisfy his narcissism. He displayed his contempt for the government and for Giffords in numerous Facebook and MySpace postings along with several YouTube videos. </p>
<p>A week before the attack, Loughner posted his penultimate message:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Reader … I’m searching. Today! With every concern, my shot is now ready for aim. The hunt, a mighty thought of mine.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Broadcasting intent for lone-wolf terrorism is consistent with <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/preventingattacksreport.pdf">research</a> on school shootings that shows more than 80% of the shooters had confided their intentions to others. More than half had told at least two people.</p>
<p>The ability of authorities to detect and prevent lone-wolf terrorism demands a clear understanding of these processes. Such insight may provide investigators with a sort of detection system, or “signatures” – as minimal as they may appear – that an individual with a terrorist intent will demonstrate in preparing for an attack.</p>
<p>Crucial to this understanding is the broadcasting of intent. Broadcasting the intent to commit terrorism is about how radicalisation is displayed, not about who is radicalised or why. Focusing on this kind of immediate objective of radicalisation among lone wolves, rather than on their underlying political grievances, may sharpen our focus on the dangers posed by lone-wolf terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramon Spaaij receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Institute of Justice (USA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark S. Hamm receives funding from the National Institute of Justice (USA).</span></em></p>There is still much we do not know about lone-wolf terrorism. But what we do know may provide investigators with a sort of detection system to prevent attacks from taking place.Ramon Spaaij, Associate Professor, Victoria UniversityMark S. Hamm, Professor of Criminology, Indiana State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/355402014-12-17T00:38:38Z2014-12-17T00:38:38ZRadicalisation and the lone wolf: what we do and don’t know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67402/original/image-20141216-14160-1s178ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Man Haron Monis, the hostage-taker in the Sydney siege, in 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Sergio Dionisio</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The events of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/sydney-siege">Sydney siege</a> this week evolved amid a torrent of speculation and theorising about the motivations and intent of the hostage-taker <a href="https://theconversation.com/sydney-siege-shows-the-rise-of-a-new-form-of-extremism-35494">Man Haron Monis</a>. Some media reporting during the Sydney siege even sought to compare the incident to America’s 9/11 and the London bombings in 2005.</p>
<p>The fact Monis forced his hostages to raise the flag bearing the Islamic testimony of faith certainly suggested that he may have been a radicalised violent extremist acting with a political or ideological motive. </p>
<h2>The process of radicalisation</h2>
<p>Violent extremism describes a situation in which the extreme belief in a social, political or ideological cause is coupled with a belief that violence is necessary and justified as a means to further that cause. Very few extremists actually become radicalised to the operational phase where they carry out acts of violence – but those that do can perpetrate horrendous crimes in the name of their adopted cause. </p>
<p>Terrorism is a form of violent extremism. Although there is no universally agreed upon definition of terrorism, most definitions include elements of violence or the threat of violence carried out for the purpose of spreading fear (or terror) and coercing governments and societies. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67403/original/image-20141216-14147-lhu6sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anders Behring Breivik in the courtroom in Oslo, Norway, April 16 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Heiko Junge</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is still much we do not know about the exact nature of radicalisation to violent extremism. That is because there is no singular profile to explain who becomes a violent extremist and why. Most theories or models of radicalisation concur that it is a process, not necessarily linear, by which an individual progresses through a mild interest in a political, social or ideological cause to accepting the use of violence as a valid means of furthering that cause. </p>
<p>The factors that result in radicalisation are complex and varied. They include individual psychology, personal and group identity, demographics, individual circumstances and contact with radicalising settings or influences, including personal contact with recruiters or influential people. </p>
<h2>What about the internet?</h2>
<p>Research <a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR453.html">suggests</a> that the internet plays some role in radicalisation though assumptions about the role of the internet in self radicalising individuals are overstated. Empirical <a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR453/RAND_RR453.sum.pdf">evidence</a> supports the assumption that the internet creates more opportunities to become radicalised and serves as a space for individuals to find support for their ideas among like-minded individuals. </p>
<p>But there is no support for the assumption that the internet accelerates radicalisation and promotes self-radicalisation without physical contact. </p>
<p>Research has also shown that theories and assumptions about radicalisation are not supported in many cases of violent extremism. The marginalisation hypothesis that argues that radicalisation is a result of individual frustration and alienation does not explain why some who have travelled to fight alongside the so-called Islamic State come from well-adjusted family backgrounds and were well integrated in the broader community. </p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, ideology and religion play <a href="http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au/R?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=189101">a less important role</a> in radicalisation. Current research by the <a href="http://www.curtin.edu.au/research/ccat/cover/index.cfm">Countering Online Violent Extremism Research Program</a> at Curtin University, with which I am involved, indicates that the emotional appeal to personal identity and group solidarity are far more significant factors in radicalisation. </p>
<h2>The ‘lone wolf’ theory</h2>
<p>Even with the growing body of empirical research contributing to understanding radicalisation, cases such as that of Man Haron Monis raise questions about whether individual actors, known as “lone wolves”, are terrorists, violent extremists, radicals or simply lone gun men. </p>
<p>We normally associate terrorism with large-scale or mass casualty attacks such as 9/11 and the Bali bombings in 2002 – attacks of the sort that require significant planning, resourcing and coordination – often transnational. </p>
<p>But the strategy of leaderless or single-actor terrorism dates back to the 19th century anarchists who carried out political assassinations and bombings. In the 1980s and 1990s the strategy of using single individuals to perpetrate attacks was adopted by the white supremacist movement in the United States as a way of thwarting government crackdowns on their activities. </p>
<p>In fact, the term “<a href="http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/231/html">lone wolfism</a>” was introduced by Tom Metzger, a white supremacist. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67404/original/image-20141216-14154-18yz0ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Zehaf-Bibeau at the Canadian National War Memorial on October 22, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the past few years lone-actor attacks have become more and more prevalent. Lone wolves are individuals who commit acts of violence in support of a group, though they may have no formal links to that group. Examples include Canadian Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, Anders Breivik in Norway and Mohammed Merah in France. </p>
<p>Each case is unique but all share the hallmarks of the lone actor. Breivik demonstrated extreme right-wing political views and wrote a 1500-page manifesto rationalising his attacks and his extremist ideology. <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/michael-zehaf-bibeau-addict-drifter-walking-contradiction/">Michael Zehaf-Bibeau</a>, who shot a Canadian soldier earlier this year, had his passport cancelled and was suspected of planning to travel to abroad as a foreign fighter. </p>
<p>French gunman <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17456541">Mohammed Merah</a>, who killed seven people in a shooting spree in France in 2012, claimed to be an associate of Al Qaeda. In each of these cases, including that of Monis, ideology or politics certainly appear to be the motivating force behind the violence, suggesting the actors were radicalised. </p>
<p>But there are also other factors to consider when distinguishing lone-wolf terrorist acts from similar attacks with no apparent motivation other than the actors own mental capacity or tendency for violence. Both Bibeau and Monis had criminal records and a history of violent behaviour. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2804099/Pictured-Recent-Muslim-convert-Michael-Zehaf-Bibeau-shot-dead-solider-opened-fire-Canadian-Parliament.html">Reports</a> on Bibeau describe his behaviour before the attack as disturbing. Monis also exhibited erratic behaviour and could possibly have had a mental illness. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/what-we-have-learned/html">Official reports</a> on Brievik indicated that he developed paranoid schizophrenia. Like Monis, Brievik exhibited high levels of narcissism and grandiose delusions. </p>
<p>What these cases tell us is that, unlike the strategic model of terrorism as a rational choice to carry out acts of violence in the name of a cause, these modern-day lone-wolf terrorists may be more like lone gunmen than terrorists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35540/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Aly receives funding from an ARC DECRA and is affiliated with People against Violent Extremism</span></em></p>The events of the Sydney siege this week evolved amid a torrent of speculation and theorising about the motivations and intent of the hostage-taker Man Haron Monis. Some media reporting during the Sydney…Anne Aly, Research Fellow in extremism, radicalisation and online extremism , Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.