Lone-Wolf Terrorism

Lone-wolf terrorism, also called lone-offender terrorism, has emerged in the twenty-first century as one of the foremost security concerns for law enforcement and counterterrorism communities. In testimony to the U.S. Congress in 2010, both the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) highlighted this threat during the homeland security review. CIA Director Leon Panetta put it plainly: “It's the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country.”

Very little research exists on the lone-offender problem, and it can be difficult to define these cases in a way that makes them distinct. Most experts tend to agree that the “lone wolf” characterization applies to attacks that are conceived and carried out by one person, without the direction of any larger, organized group. There are differences of opinion, however, about cases that reach beyond that scope. There are two key points of debate. The first is whether to include cases in which there was a single attacker, and where the planning and execution of the attack was supported by a small number of other people, but where the individuals involved were not under the direction or influence of an organized group or network. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing perpetrated by Timothy James McVeigh is a good example of this scenario. The second type of cases are those in which there was a single attacker, but the planning and execution were in fact supported by members of an organized group or network. An example is the 2009 “underwear bomber” case, in which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Ultimately, it may be that support from an organized group or network will be the key distinguishing factor, more so than whether a few other unaffiliated persons were involved. The challenge in this distinction is that the concept of what constitutes an “organized group or network” continues to evolve.

Certain persons who commit acts of terrorism may be—or may claim to be—inspired by al Qaeda–affiliated leaders, for example, even though they have never had support from or contact with any group members prior to their attack. Other actors may seek support or endorsement from al Qaeda leaders, and they may then be vetted, trained, and equipped by the organization, but they are then deployed in their attack to act alone. These two types of cases may differ from one another. The former may be more like public-figure attackers, representing a diverse group who find personal meaning in planning and executing an attack, while the latter may simply reflect a tactic used by violent extremists to maximize operational security and minimize the chance of pre-attack detection by using a single actor.

In the 1990s, Dr. Robert Féin and Bryan Vossekuil led the Exceptional Case Study Project (ECSP), an operational exploration of the thinking and behavior of persons known to have attacked, or tried to attack, a prominent public official or public figure in the United States since 1949. Given the nature of public-figure assassination, the ECSP findings are inextricably intertwined with the lone-offender issue. In fact, a number of the public-figure attackers in the ECSP study had previously considered a lone-offender type of attack.

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