Lone-Wolf Terrorism

In the Sept. 11 attacks, al-Qaeda showed just how much destruction a well-organized terrorist network could wreak through coordinated strikes. Fifteen years later, a terrorist used a rented truck to kill 86 people on a seafront promenade in Nice, France, illustrating a different kind of threat that the West is increasingly facing: individuals inspired by the goals of militant Islamic groups but acting with little or no physical connection to them. These so-called lone-wolf terrorists are especially difficult to detect in advance, and thus to stop. Their violence is fueling debates in the U.S. and Europe over issues including gun control, online privacy and immigration from Muslim countries.

An attempt to set off a bomb in New York’s Times Square subway station Dec. 11 appeared to be an act of lone wolf. Such terrorists are generally defined as acting alone or with one or two others, without specific instructions, with a political motivation but no formal ties to an organization. Attacks by lone wolves, at least until recently, were relatively rare, accounting for 1.8 percent of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and 14 other industrialized countries between 1968 and 2010. Yet officials in the U.S. and many countries within the European Union say the risk of attacks by independent jihadists is rising, especially with the 2017 collapse of the proto-state established by militants of the group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Sociologists and criminologists say lone wolves tend to harbor both personal and political grievances. More often than not, they display signs of mental instability, which may help explain their attraction to extreme causes and their inability to function within a larger group. One study found that a lone wolf is 13.5 times more likely to have a mental illness than a terrorist acting within an organization. Lone-wolf attacks often inspire copycats.