The War on Terror 101

Radicalized extremist individuals who independently carry out terrorist attacks are rare but are 

becomming more common[1].  Anders Behring Breivik, a self-radicalized terrorist killed 77 people in two separate attacks in  Norway in 2007, and Mohamed  Merah, who had ties to Al-Qaeda, killed 7 people in 2012 in France[2]. Sometimes these individuals act completely independently of any specific terrorist group. Other times they are affiliated with, or at least strongly influenced by, a certain group but act on their own[3], as was the case with the couple who instigated and executed the attack in San Bernardino, CA on December 2, 2015, that took the lives of 14 people. It has been reported that one of the attackers, Farook Rizwan Malik, pledged his allegiance to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadion, on his Facebook page the very morning of the attack[4]. As President Obama said in his speech the day after the attack, “…we see growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds of people…” The internet is the main culprit. It provides opportunities to be radicalized and accelerates the process[5]. It has plenty of propaganda and rhetoric available to anyone with an axe to grind. Individuals acting alone, in a sense, are even more dangerous than groups due to their obscurity. Like moles they can be among us in our everyday lives without our knowledge. They have the potential to become ubiquitous. Malik, an Environmental Specialist, had worked with the very people that he shot for five years, and none of them had a clue about his radical extremist beliefs or what he was capable of. None of them felt threatened by him. Trying to profile these individuals can be very difficult. However, studies suggest a ‘type’ with certain characteristics such as introversion, issues with culture identity, difficulty transitioning into adult life, and an obsession with online propaganda[6].

 

by Rachael Hendry

 

[1] http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/news/2014-03-24_Terrorists_act_alone.html

[2] http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/news/2014-03-24_Terrorists_act_alone.html

[3] http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/news/2014-03-24_Terrorists_act_alone.html

[4] http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/12/san-bernardino-shooters-radicalization/419610/

[5]http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR453/RAND_RR453.pdf

[6] http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/news/2014-03-24_Terrorists_act_alone.html