Psychology of Lone Wolf Terrorism
Introduction 2
Analysis 2
Psychological aspect of Lone Wolves 4
Conclusion 7
Introduction
Terrorism and activities related to it have for long been a major part of the present day world. Different wars, battles, and treaties have shaped the modern world, which has been encountering terrorist activities for a long time now. They have been carried out by different means and strategies which continue to take newer forms in the modern world. One such new type of terrorism includes Lone Wolf Terrorism, which has become a common concept these days. This paper will discuss the idea behind the Lone Wolf terrorism, and the psychology engaged in it.
Analysis
Lone Wolves
Lone Wolf terrorism is one of the most prevailing types of terrorist activities in the United States. A lone wolf terrorist is an individual who plans and executes the crime on his own, without any material or command aid from individual or group. The criminal tends to be motivated by a particular belief or ideology of an outside group and acts such to support the activities of that group. A lone-wolf is, therefore, a terrorist who designs and executes the terrorist activities and attacks without any organizational help and assistance (Marc, 2004). According to many, terrorism is witnessing a new era and advancements with "lone wolf" emerging at the center and in front. Numerous studies have shown that a huge population of the lone wolves is mentally ill in comparison to the general population. On the other hand, many consider them to be influenced by a radical opinion or some extremist groups.
Increase in the number of Lone Wolfattacks since 1950
The world has witnessed many lone wolves committing heinous crimes during the last few years. For instance, Anders Breivik, based in Norway, was a lone wolf who bombed and killed many young people in an attack. Nidal Malik Hasan from the United States is another example of a lone wolf who shot dead many fellow soldiers by at the military base. Omer Mateen based in Orlando recently attacked Pulse nightclub and killed almost 50 people, and this is known to be the deadliest attack of terrorism after 9/11, which is described to be deadlier in comparison to many other attacks by the jihadis on the soil of the entire United States. According to the initial reports, Mateen has been indicated as the lone wolf, who took inspiration from the ideology of ISIS, a terrorist group, but does not operate on it (Mark, 2013)
The man driving a truck through huge crowds of people involved in the celebrations of Bastille Day had killed over 80 people and is thought to have acted without the support of any group. Many consider him to have been connected with a particular group or inspired by the jihadist ideology. However, this deadliness is a still old idea. Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh acted alone and bombed and killed over 168 people in Oklahoma City at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building during 1995. This is very much indicative of the potential lethality that the lone wolves possess. In all these events, the "lone wolf" approach is embraced by the extremist groups, which can possibly be very dangerous and organized just like other terrorist groups (McCauley, 2014).
Of all the 60 incidents related to the domestic terrorism that was planned and executed between 2009 and 2015 in the United States, 74% were carried out by a lone wolf. While 90% of the incidents were executed by merely one or two people (Natasha, 2015). Such a violence is triggered by the types of grievance that these lone wolves might have developed against the world outside. They tend to gather their wounds, isolate themselves to become loners, and feed off all the injustices which justify the violence they commit. Out of all the 60 incidents that were examined, it was observed that almost all the lone wolf individual who has committed terrorist acts has been inspired and motivated either by hatred or anarchism created by a specific social group.
Psychological aspect of Lone Wolves
The psychological traits of a lone wolf's personality are greatly different from that of a common person. A lone wolf is usually an individual who likes to stay alone in solitude, works alone, and is introvert. They can be common people who have turned into glory seekers, having the feelings that their talent is not understood or appreciated by the people. They get frustrated easily which emerges from their unfulfilled expectations regarding acceptance, success, recognition, and fame in the new community within which they dwell (Jerrold et.al. 2015). Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif is one of the instances of glory seeker who had adopted radicalization and increased isolation, which made him change his religion to Islam while in prison. According to his confession to the FBI informant, he wanted to execute an even bigger attack on a processing station of the military, which would be even more destructive than the massacre undertaken by Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood. He wished his glory to be on the CNN and all over the world.
With regards to psychology, lone wolves are also of two types: first, the preferred loner and second, the imposed loner. Preferred loner wishes to stay in calm and quiet and prefers solitude. This is the source of pleasure and contentment for him. On the other hand, imposed loner does not want to stay alone, but the society rejects him for some reason and this makes him lonely. According to Navarro, all extremists are not pushed over the edge by any single trigger because all of them possess a different psychology. individuals preferring more solitude and isolation tend to let go of more of their obsessions unchecked and ultimately aggravate. Therefore, as soon as they begin isolating, they start becoming more dangerous right away (Natasha, 2015).
Various studies indicate that a huge number of terrorists in the lone-wolf category suffer from mental illness in comparison to the terrorists that are group-oriented. Though, violence, and mental Illness are two entirely different characteristics that dominate the personality, yet none of them is enough to predict or define the other factors (Simon, 2014). Many new studies suggest that the terror atrocities that are committed by the newly termed fanatics, 'lone-wolf' are likely to be stopped through the identification and treatment of mental illness. A number of studies and researchers have reported a major connection between the extremist attacks and their psychological problems which have challenged years of thought that they don't play a big role. Dozens of cases have been studied, including the killing of a soldier by one of a radical Muslims outside the parliament of Canada; he was a right-wing Islamic extremist who had fired the buildings located in Texas while an assailant in London was inspired by Al Qaeda had also shot an off-duty policeman to death in London. According to the Police, ideology motivated all the terrorists, and family members and authorities, on the other hand, were of the opinion that the victims could have been facing some kind of mental illness. However, the latest research now suggests that it could have been both (Simon, 2014).
McCauley (2014) defines the psychological aspect of a lone wolf as an individual who has suffered from grievance, particularly a grievance of some personal nature. He has little or nothing to lose besides having an easy way to escape from while committing violence. The attacker of this type is, most of the times, a loner with frequently having mental disorders along with a good amount of weapons experience while not in the military. Zehaf-Bibeau, one of the many lone wolves, portrayed the character of a disorderly profile of this sort. He did drugs, possess a list of armed attacks with his name, and badly needed assistance for his mental sufferings. The justifications might have been sparked by an ISIS' call to arms, instead of the primary catalyst which governed his violent acts. Dr. Spaaj suggests that mental illnesses, disorders, and drugs are likely to play a vital role in forming particular systems of belief shaping the enemy, along with externalizing the blames of one's own grievances or failures onto the constructed enemy who is thought of as an all-threatening foe.
Another psychological aspect depicted by McCauley (2014) is that the lone actors have the tendency to execute the attacks after having the didactic justifications in their minds. Some of the terrorist acts planned and executed by the lone wolves encompass the evolutionary readiness to bring to an end to the moral transgression in the society even if it includes punishing other people lethally. Besides this, "group identification" one of the other approaches of the lone wolf terrorists encourage them to validate their practice of self-sacrifice in order to benefit others. This may also include their actions taken from those people who are likely to threaten their group. Such profiles of lone wolves fall category of those who attach themselves to any pan-political movement, such as racial and nationalistic war or global jihad, just like Anders Breivik of Norway.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police describes the psychology of a lone wolf as an extremist who is self-radicalized and attacks to his heroes in homage by committing a terrorist operation on a rather smaller scale which is unbeknownst to higher authorities. With regards to a famous theory, the independence status of the lone wolf permits for an easy escape from the conventional authorities and signals his intelligence networks, and this makes them bearably detectable. The latest tragedies occurring in Canada and the United States have proved the lone wolfism to have been linked with the radical Islam. Though there are other aspects too, however, there should be no denial of its linkage to radicalization as the shooter's communication channels have confirmed them to be a follower of jihadist groups. While, some others were clearly found to be linked to ISIS.
It is apparent, that lone wolf is psychologically disturbed, from the fact that they seem insane, as they destroy, kill, injure, and harm the people for such motives which are visibly incomprehensible to all the other people in good mental health. It is likely that such abnormal crimes, like maiming and killing civilians can be the activities undertaken by abnormal individuals or people who suffer from any type of mental disorder or disturbance. This may be the best version of the idea that was extended by Jerrold (2000), who made the suggestion that the primary disorder that the terrorists suffer from is the narcissistic personality disorder, which refers to a diagnosis linked with paranoia and lack of empathy.
Lone wolf terrorists are very rare and dangerous. They cannot be detected and can only be recognized in retrospect. The intelligence, law enforcement, and also the academia agree that it is almost impossible to police the lone wolf terrorists. This is because they tend to emerge by a vast variety of ideologies, which is not limited to only jihadism. They are all triggered by anger, possess some unknown history of grievance or violence, have mental issues, along with a boosted moral image of some political movement which eventually sparks their violent acts.
Conclusion
Lone Wolves are basically the loners, who have gone through a trauma, grievance or some tragic incident in their lives. They retire to isolation, live with their wounds and then, come out of their shell, all disordered and justify their lives through violence. The United States has seen a rise in lone wolf terrorism for a decade and is still countering attacks. Many of the lone wolves are also driven by ideology or a belief forwarded by any political l party. Psychology plays a vital part in convincing lonely individuals to attack and take revenge or satisfy themselves.
References
Clark McCauley, (2014), Toward a Profile of Lone Wolf Terrorists: What Moves an Individual From Radical Opinion to Radical Action. Terrorism and Political Violence, Taylor & Francis Group pp. 26, pp. 69–85.
Jerrold, (2015), Commentary: Underlying Psychology of Lone Wolf' Terrorism, Clinical Psychiatry News, Online, Retrieved on July 25, 2016.
Marc Sageman, (2004), Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, Print.
Mark Thompson, (2014), The Danger of the Lone Wolf Terrorist, Time Magazine, Online, Retrieved on July 25, 2016.
Natasha Bertrand, (2015), A former FBI agent revealed the motivations behind 'lone wolf' terrorists, and they're terrifying. Business Insider, Online, Retrieved on July 25, 2016.
Post, (2000), “Terrorist psycho-logic: Terrorist behavior as a product of psychological forces.” In Walter Reich (Ed.), Origins of terrorism: Psychologies, ideologies, theologies, states of mind. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 25-40.
Simon Tomlison, (2014), Can identifying mental illness stop terrorism? Researchers link psychological problems to 'lone wolf' attacks, Dailymail, Online, Retrieved on July 25, 2016.
