The Age of Lone Wolf Terrorism

Hamm, Mark S.; Spaaij, Ramón

doi:10.7312/hamm18174

Cited by 171 publications

(119 citation statements)

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“…While 71% of explosives were created with violent intent in mind (4% unknown), only 47% of firearms were procured specifically for the purpose of an attack (13% unknown). Some individuals were simply fascinated by such weapons , used them for hunting or recreational shooting, while others had employed them for criminal acts unrelated to terrorism. While the acquisition of explosives is likely to be a sign of an impending attack, the procurement of firearms and other weapons may not be necessarily similarly revealing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data‐Driven Analysis,

Schuurman

Bakker

Gill

et al. 2017

Journal of Forensic Sciences

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ABSTRACT:This article provides an in-depth assessment of lone actor terrorists' attack planning and preparation. A codebook of 198 variables related to different aspects of pre-attack behavior is applied to a sample of 55 lone actor terrorists. Data were drawn from open-source materials and complemented where possible with primary sources. Most lone actors are not highly lethal or surreptitious attackers. They are generally poor at maintaining operational security, leak their motivations and capabilities in numerous ways, and generally do so months and even years before an attack. Moreover, the "loneness" thought to define this type of terrorism is generally absent; most lone actors uphold social ties that are crucial to their adoption and maintenance of the motivation and capability to commit terrorist violence. The results offer concrete input for those working to detect and prevent this form of terrorism and argue for a re-evaluation of the "lone actor" concept.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data‐Driven Analysis,

Schuurman

Bakker

Gill

et al. 2017

Journal of Forensic Sciences

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“…The emergence of lone attacks as a primary security concern sharpen the focus on a range of issues, including media coverage of terrorism. The unique features of loneactor terrorism, including the challenges of interdiction and the potential for copycat attacks (Gill 2015;Hamm and Spaaij 2017b), mean that the media is likely to play a particularly important role in shaping the reactions of the public, affected communities and copycat attackers. This paper presents findings from a content analysis of British and Danish newspaper reporting of lone-actor terrorism between January 2010 and February 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Press coverage of lone-actor terrorism in the UK and Denmark: shaping the reactions of the public, affected communities and copycat attackers

Parker

Pearce

Lindekilde

et al. 2018

Critical Studies on Terrorism

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Following 9/11, Al-Qaeda-orchestrated plots were considered the greatest threat to Western security and sparked the coalition's war on terror. Close to a decade later, the post-9/11 threat landscape had shifted significantly, leading then CIAdirector Leon Panetta to describe 'the lone-wolf strategy' as the main threat to the United States. Subsequent lone-actor attacks across the West, including the cities of London, Nice, Berlin, Stockholm, Ottawa and Charleston, further entrenched perspectives of a transformed security landscape in the 'after, after-9/11' world.The unique features of lone-actor terrorism, including the challenges of interdiction and potential of copycat attacks, mean that the media is likely to play a particularly important role in shaping the reactions of the public, affected communities and copycat attackers. This paper presents findings from a content analysis of British and Danish newspaper reporting of lone-actor terrorism between January 2010and February 2015. The study highlights that lone-actor terrorism is framed, with national variations, as a significant and increasing problem in both countries; that Islamist lone-actors are often represented as distinct from far-right lone-actors; and that some reporting, despite relatively limited amplification of specific terrorist messages, potentially aids lone-actors by detailing state vulnerabilities to attacks.

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“…We ran the LIWC on 11 text files—each corresponding to a clean and comprehensive collection of one lone‐actor terrorist's writings. The lone‐actor terrorist sample has been built implementing a funnel strategy, progressively discarding individuals out of a comprehensive starting list aggregating three lists: Spaaij's () 72‐name list of lone‐actor terrorists in 15 countries during the 1968 and 2007, Hamm and Spaaij's () 98‐name list of lone‐actor terrorist attacks in the United States between 1940 and 2013, and the Wikipedia entry on “Lone wolf (terrorism),” which lists 87 lone‐actor terrorist attacks between 1988 and today . Two pragmatic constraints successively reduced this list.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lone‐Actor Terrorists’ Emotions and Cognition: An Evaluation Beyond Stereotypes

Baele

2016

Political Psychology

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Lone‐actor terrorists are very often presented as emotionally and/or cognitively impaired—yet is it really the case? The present article provides the first rigorous assessment of the hypotheses according to which a high level of negative emotions, especially anger, and a lack of cognitive flexibility and complexity play a role in lone‐actor terrorists’ violent actions. Using a sample of lone‐actor terrorists’ writings, we use the LIWC (a fully automated language use analysis software) to compare terrorists’ cognition and emotion with those of other control groups, most notably nonviolent radical activists. Results strongly support the first hypothesis but clearly refute the second one, suggesting that lone‐actor terrorists are in fact characterized by a specific combination of high‐anger and high‐cognitive complexity. These method and results lay the groundwork for a more systematic and nuanced analysis of the psychology of terrorists, which is currently in a deadlock.

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The Age of Lone Wolf Terrorism

Cited by 171 publications

References 0 publications

Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data‐Driven Analysis,

Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data‐Driven Analysis,

Press coverage of lone-actor terrorism in the UK and Denmark: shaping the reactions of the public, affected communities and copycat attackers

Lone‐Actor Terrorists’ Emotions and Cognition: An Evaluation Beyond Stereotypes

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