The Boy Who Cried 'Lone Wolf'

I had two recent pieces on "Jihad Joes" in Foreign Policy:

THE BOY WHO CRIED 'LONE WOLF'

Friday's arrest of a would-be suicide bomber in Washington, D.C. led to a fresh paroxysm of analysis in the media on the ominous threat of lone wolf terrorism on U.S. soil.

The problem is that Amine El-Khalifi wasn't alone. He was in contact with men he believed were part of Al Qaeda, and those men handed him a complete (but inert) suicide vest and an automatic weapon to carry out his attack. The fact those men were FBI undercover agents is beside the point. If someone claiming to work for Al Qaeda hands you a fully assembled bomb for your attack, you're not a lone wolf.

Read more by J.M. Berger at Foreign Policy

AL QAEDA'S YOUNG AMERICANS

Hundreds of Somalis gathered on the outskirts of Mogadishu on Feb. 13 to celebrate the union of al Qaeda with its Somali cousin, the insurgent-terrorist group al-Shabab. But the mainstream media hasn't quite figured out what to make of the news, first announced last week, that the two groups had officially merged.

Many reporters were already accustomed to thinking of them as the same group. Others grasped at straws to fit the news into the "al Qaeda is losing" narrative -- dominant ever since Osama bin Laden was killed last May.

They might have done better with a simple headline: "Dozens of Americans Join al Qaeda."

Read more by J.M. Berger at Foreign Policy

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

Labels: Al-Shabab, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Amine-El-Khalifi, Foreign-Policy, individual-jihad, Jihad-Joe

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Letter From British Jihadi Describes Contacts With Anwar Awlaki

A letter from convicted British homegrown jihadi Rajib Karim, posted on extremist forums this week, sheds light on the methods of American Al Qaeda figure Anwar Awlaki.

Rajib Karim was an employee of British Airways, who in Marc h was sentenced to 30 years in prison for providing information about airline security for use in a terrorist plot to Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric who today works with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula from his family's homeland of Yemen.

It's important to note that Karim's account contradicts evidence submitted at trial and may obviously be colored by self-interest. However the account was written after his sentencing and he admits to being guilty of several of the counts brought against him.

According to Karim, he initially sought out Awlaki not for terrorist purposes but because he wanted to emigrate to a region in Yemen where he could live under a strict interpretation of shariah law. Awlaki's audio lectures in English frequently exhort Muslims living in the West to make such a move, known as making hijrah.

But Awlaki did not help Karim follow Awlaki's own advice, according to the letter.

According to Karim, he chose to contact Awlaki because "I needed someone whom I could trust and who would be a man of influence in that region. ... He was a well respected scholar, he was from an influential tribe." Additionally, Karim does not speak Arabic and hoped Awlaki, who is fluent in both Arabic and English, could help him get settled.

Karim wrote to Awlaki, outlining his wish to emigrate and mentioning that he worked for British Airways. On hearing Karim's profession, Awalki's wrote back immediately.

"[Hearing] that you intend on making hijrah, I immediately wanted to contact you to tell you that my advice to you was to remain in your current position," Awlaki wrote.

Karim, by his own account, did not want to remain in the U.K. but having gotten Awlaki's attention was loath to say anything that might cause Awlaki to stop writing.

According to Karim, he decided to string Awlaki and portray himself as too incompetent to pull off an act of terrorism in the UK, in the hopes that Awlaki would eventually decide to help him make hijra.

This idea was doomed to fail. In my soon-forthcoming article on Awlaki's "Constants on the Path of Jihad," I examine Awlaki's focus on taking any kind of terrorist action over taking pragmatic action calculated to succeed.

According to Karim, he proceeded to Google information about airline security and sent Awlaki the top search results, while claiming to have access to more sensitive areas of the industry.

At the same time, he wrote things that Karim thought "would have made [Awlaki] at least question my suitability for doing a terrorist attack in UK," raising a series of technical questions about whether Islam permitted him to take various steps, raising doubts about his commitment and asking to come to Yemen. Awlaki was not swayed.

If Karim's account is credible, the contradiction between Awlaki's lectures and his private statements is striking. Awlaki has repeatedly urged Western Muslims to make hijra to Muslim lands rather than live among "infidels."

However, the e-mails do line up with arguments presented in AQAP's English-language "Inspire" magazine which urges Western Muslims to remain where they are, and to focus on carrying out lone-wolf-style terrorist attacks at home in the West rather than traveling to join jihadists who are fighting in regional conflicts.

This strategy is a departure from previous jihadist concepts. In the past, jihadist ideologues have urged Muslims to become foreign fighters by traveling from the West for training and to gain experience in battle in jihadist conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq or Yemen.

Al Qaeda and its affiliates have increasingly embraced the lone wolf model over the foreign fighter model, despite its many limitations.

The foreign fighter model has numerous advantages to movements like Al Qaeda, including stronger justifications and the opportunity to subject recruits to extended religious indoctrination. Foreign fighters are far more likely to become experienced terrorist operatives and bring long-term value to the movement. In contrast, most lone wolves fail in their attacks and are arrested in short order, essentially removing them from the playing field before they even begin.

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

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Anwar-Awlaki, individual-jihad, Inspire-Magazine, lone-wolf, Rajib-Karim

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

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.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink