Lone Wolves in the USA (new title)

[davidbfpo]

Last week I attended a closed academic and practitioner conference on Lone Actor Terrorism; officialdom dislikes the phrase Lone Wolves and amidst the presentations was an excellent one by Professor Mark Hamm, from Indiana State University 'Radicalization Model of Lone Wolf Terrorism: The Prevention of Six Cases'.

I have obtained his Powerpoint, with his consent to use it via here, alas it is 5.4Mb so cannot be uploaded, so if you are interested PM me with an email address.

Link to his university mini-bio:https://www.indstate.edu/cas/ccj/ccj...ff/hamm-mark-s

What I found very interesting were the figures on attacks and that there were several historical attacks, which I'd not heard of - notably a woman stabbing Martin Luther King and a New Yorker bomber who evaded detection for sixteen years whilst he planted thirty-three IEDs. Let alone a Nazi, James Cummings who assembled a "dirty bomb" to set off at Obama's inauguration.

[AdamG]

officialdom dislikes the phrase Lone Wolves .

Rhetorically, why is that?

[davidbfpo]

Rhetorically, why is that?

It certainly was stated at the conference's opening, but Raffaello Pantucci (RUSI who was not there) in December 2014, in a commentary after the Sydney siege, has written with my emphasis in bold:

Lone actor (the preference by governments is to not use the term “lone wolf” as it is seen as glorifying) terrorism is not new. Right wing extremists have long liked the idea, drawing back to Cold War thinkers who were keen to prepare America for the possibility of an invading force that would require loyal survivors to take to the hills to wage an undercover insurgency against invaders. Initially developed under the concept of “leaderless resistance” in the 1960s by a US Army Cold Warrior called Ulius Louis Amoss, the ideas were further advanced by a Ku Klux Klan member called Louis Beam in the 1980s. For Beam, the concept of single man (or small cell) fighting units was a perfect way around the need to fight a strong and pervasive state – because there were fewer opportunities for security forces to intercede.

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...e-actor-attack

Maybe helpful:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulius_Louis_Amoss

Given the history, which is new to me, perhaps it was seen as best to separate the current description from the past? It does resonate with some ideologically.

Just how a "Lone Wolves" is seen as glorifying escapes me, but in terms of media imagery wolves can be portrayed quite differently, e.g. the film 'Dancing with Wolves'.

[AdamG]

Three people were killed after a man went on a shooting spree in downtown Fresno, California on Tuesday while shouting "God is great!" in Arabic#before he was tackled and taken into custody, police said.
Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said officers took Kori Ali Muhammad, 39, into custody in connection to the shootings. Dyer said Muhammad went by the nickname "Black Jesus" and shouted "Allahu Akbar" as police tackled him to the ground.
Dyer said at a news conference Muhammad has made posts against white people and the government on his Facebook page. All of the victims of the shooting rampage on Tuesday were white men, according to police.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/04/18...n-custody.html

Before anyone points out that this guy wasn't your stereotypical Middle-Eastern self-motivated muj wannabe and more of a garden-variety racist nutcase, his actions still fall into the 'win' category for ISIS. Too bad he wasn't turned into pink mist.

[AdamG]

Just how a "Lone Wolves" is seen as glorifying escapes me, but in terms of media imagery wolves can be portrayed quite differently, e.g. the film 'Dancing with Wolves'.

Someone has to justify their higher degrees and current job position, so they produce another 'Do something!' feelgood NEWSPEAK proclamation that keeps reporters busy.

[davidbfpo]

The full title of this academic article is 'Foreshadowing targeted violence: Assessing leakage of intent by public mass murderers' and alas it is behind a pay wall. The authors make it worth looking at, given their expertise.

The Abstract states:

The idea that identifiable behaviors presage violence is a core concept in the threat assessment literature. Especially meaningful from an operational perspective is “leakage”, which concerns whether offenders intentionally or unintentionally reveal insights into their thoughts or feelings that suggest impending targeted violence. Previous research has generally been limited to assessing the prevalence of leakage in various offender populations. The present study more thoroughly describes leakage in a sample of 115 public mass murderers in the U.S. whose activities took place between 1990 and 2014. We disaggregate leakage into three distinct forms (written statements, verbal statements to the public, verbal statements to family/friends), and examine these in relation to theorized correlates of leakage. The only significant predictor of leakage we found is the presence of a grievance, specifically a grievance against a person or entity, as opposed to a grievance against a category of people or a grievance against an idea, movement or religion. We discuss implications of these results as well as directions for future research.

Link:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...59178917300502

From The Daily Beast a story about a school shooter last week in New Mexico, who had advertised his problems and desires on-line. The FBI once interviewed.
Link:https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-me...premacy-sites?

[davidbfpo]

The cited article above is now free o access and download for fifty days via:https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...59178917300502

[AdamG]

The cited article above is now free o access and download for fifty days via:https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...59178917300502

Care to walk us through that? Because I'm still seeing it for the low-low price of $19.95.

[davidbfpo]

Care to walk us through that? Because I'm still seeing it for the low-low price of $19.95.

John Horgan's tweeet says:

Our new piece on threat assessment & foreshadowing targeted violence is FREE to access for 50 days.

Puzzling. Using the same link, in the UK obviously, I get access:https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...59178917300502

I have downloaded a copy, so if still no good PM me with an email address.

[davidbfpo]

Raffaello Pantucci's latest commentary (which is posted here and on the similar US thread), which is sub-titled:

Recent attacks perpetrated by extreme right wing terrorists in the US are undoubtedly linked to the upcoming mid-term elections, reflecting the reality that the country’s charged political scene may be pushing would-be terrorists into action.

Link:https://raffaellopantucci.com/2018/1...wing-violence/

[davidbfpo]

This post covers several topics so in a moment it will be copied to other threads on CT, lone wolves (inside the USA and beyond).

Bruce Hoffman has two articles on the rise of the extreme right as a threat.

The first is quite short and the second via WoTR is longer.

So No.1:https://www.cfr.org/article/how-seri...list-terrorism and No.2:https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/ba...f-lone-wolves/

Paul Gill, a UK-based academic writes on lone wolves after Christchurch:https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/p...oural-analysis

Raffaello Pantucci (RUSI) adds his commentary, which mainly applies to the UK:https://raffaellopantucci.com/2019/0...-not-any-more/

Then Steve Metz on why lone wolves and a somewhat pessimistic viewpoint IMHO:https://www.theamericanconservative....olf-terrorist/

A NYT graphic on the links between white extremists:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...istchurch.html