The Utility of Lone Wolves, Or Lack Thereof

The death of Osama bin Laden came and went, and nary a midnight howl was heard from the lone wolf terrorists of the American jihadist movement.

Now the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attack has come and gone, and the lone wolves again stayed in their lairs.

What can we conclude from this?

There's no question that the phenomenon of lone wolf terrorism kills. In the United States, 17 Americans have died in acts of "individual jihad" by Al Qaeda sympathizers. We have also seen a number of near misses, from the jihadist movement and others, such as the averted Martin Luther King Day bombing attempt carried out in Spokane by a white supremacist.

If there were any doubts that lone wolves can be deadly, they were dispelled by Anders Breivik, the Norwegian anti-Muslim crusader who in July killed 69 young people in a coordinated attack using guns and a car bomb.

But there's a difference between being deadly and being the Number One threat to U.S. national security. Lone wolves are perhaps the most likely form of terrorist attack, and the most common, but not the most existentially important issue in the world of challenges this country faces.

The failure of lone wolf jihadists to strike at important moments, such as the 9/11 anniversary or after the death of bin Laden, keenly illustrates the current limitations of the "individual jihad" movement endorsed by such al Qaeda ideologues as Abu Musab Al Suri and Anwar Awlaki. The individual jihad has also been encouraged by Al Qaeda's central command, including in a video released earlier this year.

But the major events (or rather non-events) of this year illustrate that the methodology of individual jihad is neither strategic nor tactical in its current form. If individual jihadists can't be relied on to act when the stakes are obviously high, such as the death of bin Laden or the most-watched anniversary of 9/11, they probably can't achieve meaningful goals for Al Qaeda and its supporters.

How useful would U.S. drones be if they only fired missiles at random intervals and couldn't be directed to the right place at the right time? Individual jihadists have not demonstrated their ability to target and act with timely strategic or tactical intent.

Again, I want to stress, that doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. They have killed before and will kill again, and Brevik has demonstrated that the lone wolves of today can carry out attacks on a scale previously unimagined.

But the lone wolves have repeatedly highlighted their weaknesses, including the aforementioned failure to act when they can have the most impact and a failure to follow the guidelines Al Qaeda has laid out for them.

What we are left with is a series of radicalized but ultimately weak individuals who usually fail in their efforts to carry out even modest attacks on U.S. soil, and who create no synergy with other Al Qaeda ventures or communications.

Their efforts often seem to casual observers to be motivated more by mental illness than ideology. Their inadequacy inspires more contempt than fear. Their failure to show up when people are most afraid of them diminishes their impact when they eventually get around to acting.

So what real threat does the lone wolf jihadist present to America? There are three ways that they can cause significant damage going forward:

1) Al Qaeda might figure out the right approach to make the lone wolves conform more closely to its priorities. We've seen distinct efforts to accomplish this, including the As-Sahab video linked above and recent issues of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinsula's Inspire magazine. So far, it hasn't been working all that well, but Al Qaeda will continue to adapt its approach.

2) Lone wolves may follow the example of Anders Breivik and become more ambitious and effective in their attacks, magnifying the impact of their efforts. This is the biggest concern, in my opinion, and we need to closely monitor the impact of that event.

3) The U.S. may choose to take a counterproductive approach to dealing with the legitimate threat of lone wolf terrorism by overemphasizing its prevalence or its relationship to mainstream Islam.

On the last point, I will refer back to some of my previous comments about "countering violent extremism" initiatives.

Al Qaeda has always been most effective when it could manipulate us into taking actions which reinforce its worldview. The most obvious risks are an excessive emphasis on lone wolves as being representative of American Muslims in general or a concerted government effort to create "acceptable" forms of Islam in the United States through counterradicalization programs that delve too deeply into religion at the expense of focusing preventing on acts of violence through law enforcement and disrupting nodes of radical activity.

For more about American jihadists and lone wolf terrorism, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Abu-Musab-Al-Suri, Al-Qaeda, Anwar-Awlaki, CVE, homegrown-terrorism, individual-jihad, lone-wolf, Radicalization

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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An Interview with Online Jihadist Abu Suleiman Al Nasser

Labels: Abu-Musab-Al-Suri, Abu-Suleiman-al-Nasser, Internet, Jihadist-Forums, Leaderless-Jihad

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Can "Lone Wolves" Travel In Packs?

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

The death of Osama bin Laden has a lot of people worried about Al Qaeda's revenge. How will the terrorist organization respond to the death of its leader? Will there be new attacks on America?

It's not a simple question. The central Al Qaeda organization -- the group of men based in Afghanistan and Pakistan who attacked us on September 11 -- was already under pressure before bin Laden's death, and it's going to be under a lot more pressure once U.S. intelligence finishes reading the computer hard drives they seized from bin Laden's house.

Then there are Al Qaeda's affiliates abroad, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al Shabab. These organizations may have better capacity for an attack, but they also have distractions -- namely revolutions in their backyards. Some or all of these groups are likely to attempt something, but the nature and timing of such attacks could take any number of forms.

The biggest question mark comes from the group uniquely positioned to avenge Osama bin Laden's death -- the homegrown American terrorists commonly referred to as "lone wolves."

Since September 11, U.S. authorities have become increasingly concerned about the terrorist threat from radicalized American Muslims who are willing and able to carry out acts of violence without institutional support from a formal terrorist network such as Al Qaeda. My new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, looks at the few successes and significant failures of the lone-wolf crowd.

In truth, most of the American lone wolves were not truly alone; they are loosely networked with each other and with various Al Qaeda franchises. Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan was guided by Anwar Awlaki, who is tied to Al Qaeda in Yemen. Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was trained and financed by the Pakistani Taliban. The would-be Portland Christmas bomber Mohamed Mohamud thought he was being helped by al Qaeda Central, but his helpers turned out to be FBI agents. The same thing happened to Antonio Martinez, who hoped to bomb a U.S. military recruiting station near Baltimore.

Worries about these homegrown terrorists acting alone, or with minimal support and supervision, can be traced back to the writings of a jihadist ideologue whom not many Americans have heard of -- Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, better known by his nom de jihad, Abu Musab Al Suri.

Al Suri is an Al Qaeda member who produced massive amount of jihadist training material in video and in books. His works, which are currently being reprinted in serialized form by Al Qaeda in Yemen's English language magazine "Inspire," call for individual Muslims to take up the banner of jihad without waiting for support from a formal terrorist organization.

This is most commonly referred to today as "leaderless jihad," and it takes more than a few pages from a concept known as "leaderless resistance," which was championed by white supremacist Louis Beam for use in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s.

Thus far, leaderless jihad -- like leaderless resistance before it -- has been a perennial underachiever. While a fairly impressive number of radicals have attempted to act on their own, most have crafted terrorist attacks that were doomed to fail, and even the most successful "leaderless" events (like Hasan's shooting spree) have been small in comparison to September 11 or the Al Qaeda's 1998 East African embassy bombings.

There are a lot of factors holding back leaderless jihadists. For one thing, terrorism tends not to be easy, especially if you're trying to build a bomb or pull off a complicated stunt. Money and training -- of the sort provided by a formal terrorist organization -- exponentially increase the effectiveness of a would-be terrorist.

And the people most likely to have been influenced by Al Suri's ideas tend to be, well, let's call it "kinetically challenged." They spend a lot of time banging on keyboards in darkened rooms. They tend to be young. Very few have any real experience or training in fighting, unlike the American jihadists of the pre-9/11 era, who were often military veterans.

But the leaderless jihad has now arrived at a crossroads with the death of Osama bin Laden.

Louis Beam's "leaderless" followers shared a common conception. One day, they imagined, a pivotal event would cause all of the leaderless cells to step forward and take action, inspired by a common provocation, and sweep over the country, kicking ass, taking names and generally overthrowing the status quo.

The invasion of Panama was seen as such a precipitating event. When it happened, there was a lot of talk, but no one acted. The Oklahoma City bombing (inspired in part by Beam's philosophy) was exactly the sort of thing that was supposed to launch the revolution. When it happened, they didn't even talk. Virtually all of the racist and anti-government militia groups crawled into the deepest, darkest holes they could find and stayed there for about 10 years. The lesson learned is this: When you don't have a leader, it's pretty easy to stay home.

The death of Osama bin Laden has raised the specter of reprisals. Some sort of response from institutional Al Qaeda and its affiliates is a real possibility, but there are also compelling tactical arguments for them to keep their powder dry. And the culture of jihadist terrorist organizations skews toward long-term thinking. Such reprisals are a serious concern but not a fait accompli. And of course, these organizations are constantly planning terror attacks, with or without provocation, so to some extent, it's just business as usual for them.

The tactical arguments that might slow institutional terrorists don't apply to American "lone wolves," however. Their actions are simpler, and they lack the weight of Al Qaeda's not-insignificant bureaucracy on their shoulders. They are already living next to their targets; the logistics are much simpler.

And so we come to the day of reckoning, the killing by American forces of the global jihad's most important patron, Osama bin Laden. If the lone wolves are a force to contend with, this must be their moment. The opportunity cost for action is negligible. The affront to their sensibilities is enormous.

We really don't have a good handle on how many potential lone wolves might be out there. We know that the number of Americans who take part in jihadist online forums runs at least into the hundreds and most likely into the thousands. A 2007 survey of American Muslims by Pew found that 5 percent admitted to having a favorable view of Al Qaeda, which translates into tens of thousands of people.

But not all of those sympathetic people are likely to act out with violence. So far the number has been extraordinarily small, a fraction of one percent of the total U.S. Muslim population. The open question is how many of these are close to acting and just waiting for the right combination of considerations.

We're about to find out whether the threat from leaderless lone wolves is destined to remain a trickle of malcontents lashing out sporadically, or whether Abu Musab Al Suri's vision of an organically synchronized jihad without borders or affiliations has real legs to carry it into the 21st century.

If not now, when?

We don't know whether the lone wolves have what it takes to make a lasting impact, and that lack of knowledge is more unsettling than comforting. It might be time to try out that new terror alert system. It seems like the right moment for an ounce of prevention.

J.M. Berger is author of the new book, "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam," available from Amazon.com. For videos and documents related to the book, check out JihadJoeBook.com. Follow @intelwire on Twitter for updates about American jihadists.

Labels: Abu-Musab-Al-Suri, Al-Qaeda, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Jihad-Joe, Nidal-Malik-Hasan, Osama-Bin-Laden

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

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Inspire's Ode to the Not-So-Lone Wolves

Previous: Inspire Issue 5 Aims For Rapid Repositioning

Some counterterrorism-oriented notes from the fifth issue of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine:

In the "Ask Inspire" section, a writer (presumably Awlaki) encourages Americans to stay at home and carry out lone-wolf terrorist attacks rather than travel to the fields of jihad. Interestingly, it pushes the lone-wolf concept even further than previous issues, pointing out that the FBI has diverted would-be mujahideen who reached out to others for help. Probably-Awlaki argues that success is more likely if the aspiring mujahid acts without consulting ANYONE.

But there are virtually no documented cases in which an American with clear jihadist motivations has acted totally in a vacuum. Jihadism is a social movement typically carried out because the participant has an overly strong sense of community. Lone actors are exactly the opposite.

Awlaki cites Nidal Hasan and Stockholm bomber Taimour Abdulwahab as examples of "lone wolves," but in reality, Hasan had contact with Awlaki directly, and Abdulwahab may have had accomplices. Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab is cited elsewhere in the magazine as another example of lone wolfism, but he hardly qualifies, having been trained at an AQAP camp and assigned his mission by Awlaki personally.

AQAP's military commander Abu Hurairah also praises the not-so-lone wolves in an interview segment. He calls for a homegrown operation after every Western operation targeting mujahideen.

An extract from the writings of Abu Musab Al Suri calls for assassinations of Western military and civilian leaders. Al Suri writes that assassination is good enough for the CIA, so it's good enough for Al Qaeda.

Given that assassins are much more likely to be lone actors than other kinds of terrorists, this is probably something counterterrorism officials should be looking at. This message is reinforced by Awlaki's celebration of the assassination of Anwar Sadat later in the magazine.

It's also reinforced by repeated references throughout the magazine to Roshonara Choudhry, the British Muslim who attempted to assassinate British parliament member Stephen Timms as revenge for his vote in favor of the Iraq War.

Of all the examples cited, Choudhry is the only one who really fits the profile of a lone wolf in the purest sense. If any case study recommends itself out of Inspire No. 5, it's Choudhry. Unfortunately, her case also highlights the one redeeming characteristic of the otherwise weak lone-wolf model -- she didn't give herself away until it was too late.

For more about Awlaki and other American jihadists, pre-order "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam," the first comprehensive look at the phenomenon of American jihadists from the 1970s to the present.

Labels: Abu-Musab-Al-Suri, Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Anwar-Awlaki, AQAP, Inspire-Magazine, Jihad-Joe, Nidal-Malik-Hasan

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Gadahn and Awlaki, Together At Last?

A slimmed-down Adam Gadahn is out with a new video that is just loaded with interesting elements (it can be seen here). Here's a somewhat hasty review.

The main focus of the video deals with the Mardin Conference, a gathering of Islamic scholars in Turkey earlier this year that sought to undercut much of the ideological basis of Al Qaeda's globalized declarations of war against the West.

Gadahn betrays the weakness of his position right at the start, saying that the young often realize the truth before the old and that laymen often recognize the truth ahead of the scholars.

Al Qaeda's leaders, including "Shaykh" Gadahn, have often sought to position themselves as the leading scholars of the day, diminishing competing messages on the basis that their own scholarship is superior. Saying that the laymen have outsmarted the scholars is a tacit admission that Al Qaeda's scholarship is lacking.

Gadahn seems to throw out a lot of the book here as far as conventional views of the ideological underpinnings of jihadist movements, saying that jihadists have "their own books of fiqh" (jurisprudence), and arguing the Mardin declaration is irrelevant to them since it's refuting a school of thought he claims is not used by Al Qaeda. (For more on this, check out Aaron Zelin's analysis on Jihadology.)

The graphics for this latest video are quite similar to recent Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula releases, and the attack on the Mardin conference echoes Anwar Awlaki's recent article in AQAP's Inspire magazine. The video also featured clips of Awlaki from a recent AQAP release. All of this reflects the rising prominence of AQAP's operation and perhaps hints at coordination of media operations.

Awlaki clips were inserted into the speech without preamble -- i.e., Gadahn doesn't introduce the clip. It is possible someone from AQAP, or simply someone other than Gadahn, produced the video from raw footage of the speech and that additional clips were added by the video's editor, without Gadahn's knowledge.

Clips of AQAP's "underwear bomber" were also featured in the same manner. However, Omar Abdulmutallab was named by Gadhan in the video, and Awlaki wasn't.

In my opinion, and maybe it's a reach, these considerations muddy the impact of Awalki's Al Qaeda Central debut. Is this a strong endorsement by AQ Central? I don't think so. It feels like someone tacked the Awlaki material on as an afterthought.

Whatever the case, Gadahn's message is markedly similar to Awlaki's. Gadahn ends with an apparent endorsement of lone-wolfism, the strategic approach to jihad promulgated first by Abu Musab Al Suri and now promoted by Awlaki and his crew at Inspire. If Al Qaeda is really adopting the leaderless approach to jihad, there's no question that this is a losing strategy for them in the long run (if not sooner).

Labels: Abu-Musab-Al-Suri, Adam-Gadahn, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Anwar-Aulaqi, Anwar-Awlaki, Azzam-the-American, Leaderless-Jihad

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink