“The biggest concern we have right now…is the lone wolf terrorist,” President Barack Obama said in 2011.1 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Leon Panetta told Congress a year earlier that “it's the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country.”² India's home secretary, G. K. Pillai, echoed those sentiments, warning that “terrorists can be anywhere. The real challenge is the lone wolf, someone who is not known.”³ Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith joined the list of concerned public officials when he said in a radio interview that “we are now seeing emerging the potential so-called lone wolf escapade where we don't have sophisticated planning but an individual is seduced by the international jihad and as a lone wolf does extreme things.”⁴ Whether it is homegrown terrorists influenced by jihadist websites and chat rooms or individuals bent on terrorist activity for a wide range of causes or issues, the threat of lone wolf terrorism is growing around the world.

It is understandable, however, if one is skeptical of anybody who writes that the terrorist threat is “growing” or “increasing” in any shape or form. Haven't we had enough warnings about terrorism over the years, often fueled by self-interested politicians, government officials, terrorism experts, and others? The Department of Homeland Security's ill-conceived “color-coded alert” system is still fresh in many minds, and its only effect was scaring people about terrorist threats that never materialized. Keeping the terrorist threat high in the public's mind and on the government's agenda is good for business, both for terrorists, who thrive on the psychological fear that terrorism evokes, and for those who talk, write, or consult about terrorism. But there is enough evidence to indicate that the lone wolf threat is real and is not likely to fade away anytime soon.

A dizzying array of recent lone wolf attacks and plots illustrates the diversity of this threat, as noted in the introduction. The twin terror attacks in Norway by an anti-Islamic extremist were among the worst lone wolf incidents in history. In the United States, lone wolf attacks in recent years have ranged from terrorists motivated by single issues and antigovernment ideology to those inspired by Islamic extremism and white supremacy. Britain has also experienced a diverse array of lone wolf incidents. A lone wolf Islamic extremist was arrested in April 2008 before he could carry out a suicide attack on a shopping center in Bristol. Among the items police found in a search of the man's apartment were the unstable explosive hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD), an electrical circuit capable of detonating the explosive, and a suicide vest. Just over a month later, another lone wolf terrorist sympathetic to Islamic extremism was injured in a failed suicide attack in a restaurant in Exeter. He was preparing three nail bombs in the restaurant's bathroom when one accidently exploded in his hands. Lone wolf incidents in Britain also included a plot by a neo-Nazi to wage a violent campaign against “non-British” people using shrapnel bombs. When the man was arrested on the platform of a Suffolk train station in October 2008, police found two homemade explosives in his possession. A search of his home uncovered explosive ingredients and white supremacist and neo-Nazi literature. He also reportedly idolized Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and David Copeland, another lone wolf neo-Nazi, who became known as the “London Nailbomber.”

Lone wolf terrorism is not limited to just a few incidents and places. Rather, it is increasingly occurring in countries throughout the world. How, then, can we explain the rise of lone wolf terrorism? Explanations for any type of terrorism are fraught with difficulties. The study of terrorism is a speculative endeavor at best, with cultural and personal biases potentially affecting explanations as to why individuals or groups may resort to violence against a wide range of targets. There have been explanations posited that range from poverty, alienation, and humiliation as the root causes of terrorism to explanations that focus on foreign state sponsorship of terrorist activity. The diverse nature of terrorism precludes any overall theory from being capable of explaining this phenomenon. It is difficult, for example, to argue that terrorism is due to specific conditions or situations when terrorism exists in virtually every country around the world. As Norwegian scholars Brynjar Lia and Katja H-W Skjolberg correctly point out, “We find terrorists among deprived and uneducated people, and among the affluent and well educated; we find terrorists among psychotic and ‘normal’ healthy people; and among people of both sexes and of all ages. Terrorism occurs in rich as well as in poor countries; in the modern industrialised world and in less developed areas; during a process of transition and development, prior to or after such a process; in former colonial states and in independent ones; and, in established democracies as well as in less democratic regimes.”5

One way, however, to explain the rise in lone wolf terrorism is to view it as part of an emerging trend in terrorism that can best be described as the “Technological Wave.” This wave permeates all aspects of terrorism and is of immense value to the individual who wants to embark upon a campaign of terrorist violence.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL WAVE OF TERRORISM

The concept of “waves” of terrorist activity was first formulated by pioneering terrorism scholar David C. Rapoport to explain the history of modern terrorism.⁶ A wave can be thought of as a “cycle of activity in a given time period—a cycle characterized by expansion and contraction phases. A crucial feature is its international character; similar activities occur in several countries, driven by a common predominant energy that shapes the participating groups’ characteristics and mutual relationships.”7 According to Rapoport, there have been four basic waves of terrorism since the late 1880s. The first wave began with the anarchist movement of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The Anarchist Wave was followed by the Anti-Colonial Wave, which began in the 1920s; the New Left Wave, which began in the 1960s; and the Religious Wave, which began in 1979. While there can be overlap in the waves, as one ebbs and another emerges, the lifespan of a wave is a generation, or about forty years, “a suggestive time frame closest in duration to that of a human life cycle, in which dreams inspiring parents lose their attractiveness for children.”⁸

If Rapoport is correct, then we can expect the current Religious Wave to end, or at least be overtaken by a new wave of terrorism, by 2020. While it might be hard to imagine religious-inspired terrorism by organized, decentralized, or ad hoc groups not being the main form of terrorism for several more decades, given the numerous attacks perpetrated by Islamic extremists around the world, the history of terrorism has been characterized by the changing of the guard at different periods. Each of Rapoport's four waves, for example, was launched into a global movement by some type of grand event or incident. Rapoport points out that the wounding of a Russian police commander who had mistreated political prisoners in 1878 by Vera Zasulich inspired the Russian anarchist movement, particularly her proclamation that she was a “terrorist, not a killer,” after she threw her weapon to the floor.⁹ She was acquitted at her trial and treated as a heroine after she was freed. German newspapers reported that the pro-Zasulich demonstrations meant a revolution was imminent in Russia.¹⁰

The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, precipitated the Anti-Colonial Wave, as the “victors applied the principle of national self-determination to break up the empires of the defeated states.”¹¹ The third wave, the New Left Wave, found its inspiration in the Vietnam War and the effective role of the Viet Cong in its battles with American and South Vietnamese troops. The war led to the formation of radical groups in the Third World and the West, where “the war stimulated enormous ambivalence among the youth about the value of the existing system. Many Western groups—such as the American Weather Underground, the West German Red Army Faction (RAF), the Italian Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army, and the French Action Directe—saw themselves as vanguards for the Third World masses. The Soviet world encouraged the outbreaks and offered moral support, training, and weapons.”12

The fourth wave, the Religious Wave, was launched after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which, along with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that same year, led to religious extremism in many parts of the world. The Iranian Revolution “was clear evidence to believers that religion now had more political appeal than did the prevailing third-wave ethos because Iranian Marxists could only muster meager support against the Shah.”¹³ The Ayatollah Khomeini regime in Iran “inspired and assisted Shiite terror movements outside of Iran, particularly in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Lebanon.”¹⁴

While terrorist groups with religious agendas will undoubtedly be active for many years to come, a new wave, the Technological Wave, is emerging and making for a more level playing field among terrorists with different ideologies and agendas.¹⁵ No single type of terrorist ideology will dominate this new wave in the same way that anarchism, anticolonialism, “New Left” ideology, and religious fundamentalism dominated the preceding four waves. Instead, technology is there for all to take advantage of, offering any group or individual the opportunity to compete in the world of terrorism. We can see technology's influence in all aspects of terrorism, from the rapid growth in the use of technology by governments and militaries for surveillance, detection of weapons, counterterrorist operations, and other purposes to its use by a wide variety of terrorists.

No one type of terrorist movement has a monopoly on the use of technology. For example, virtually every terrorist group has a website and is utilizing the Internet for recruitment, spreading its message, communications, and a variety of other purposes. In terms of weapons, insurgents in Iraq have used sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in their attacks. The insurgents have proved to be technologically adaptable, as they switched from first using remote-controlled IEDs to then using long wires buried in the ground (also known as “command wires”) in order to detonate the bombs after US troops acquired the ability to successfully jam the remote-controlled devices. Another indication of the technological savvy of the Iraqi insurgents is their use of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). The EFPs “fire a slug of high density metal at between 4,000 and 6,500 miles per hour with much more energy than roadside bombs made from artillery shells. The penetrator's high velocity punches a relatively small hole in a vehicle's armor, then sprays occupants inside with a stream of shrapnel.”16

IED and EFP technology is likely to be exported around the world as many insurgents leave Iraq and Afghanistan and take their terrorist campaigns to other countries. The Technological Wave will not only witness extremists from Iraq and Afghanistan using sophisticated IEDs and EFPs in different countries but will also include other terrorists, including lone wolves, who have their own agendas and who learn how to make the latest IEDs and EFPs from veterans of the Iraqi and Afghan insurgencies. They may also acquire the knowledge even without the cooperation of the militants from Iraq and Afghanistan, since it is difficult in the world of terrorism for one group or cell to keep weapons technology a secret from other extremists. Furthermore, there won't be the billion-dollar effort in other countries that the United States used in Iraq and Afghanistan to neutralize and defeat the IED and EFP threat. That will make it easier for extremists to use these and other technologically sophisticated weapons in their attacks.

THE INTERNET AND THE LONE WOLF

The most important aspect of the Technological Wave that helps explain the growing prominence of the lone wolf terrorist is the Internet. In fact, the Internet can be considered the grand event that helped launch the wave. The Internet is the “energy” for this new wave, continually revolutionizing the way information is gathered, processed, and distributed; the way communications are conducted and social networks are formed; and the way single individuals, such as lone wolves, can become significant players by using the Internet to learn about weapons, targets, and techniques.

By the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Internet was an integral part of everyday life for many people. One could find information on virtually any topic and feel connected to the world at large with a laptop computer or a smartphone. For the individual interested in perpetrating a terrorist attack, everything from how to build homemade bombs to maps and diagrams of potential targets were available on the Internet. So, too, were detailed accounts of terrorist incidents around the world, which lone wolves could study in order to determine what might work for them. In addition, the Internet provided a mechanism for lone wolves to become infatuated with extremist ideologies through the reading of websites, blogs, Facebook pages, and other tools available online. Lone wolves could also find other like-minded individuals on the Internet and obtain help from one or two other people in perpetrating an attack.

We only have to look at some of the recent lone wolf incidents to see the significant role that the Internet is playing for the individual terrorist. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian lone wolf who perpetrated the dual terrorist attacks in Norway, posted a fifteen-hundred-page manifesto on the Internet shortly before he embarked on his campaign of terror. The manifesto called for an end to “the Islamic colonisation and Islamisation of Western Europe” and blamed Norwegian politicians for allowing that to happen. He hoped his attacks would bring attention to his manifesto, which it certainly did, as his document suddenly became known throughout the world. Breivik was also influenced by anti-Islamic bloggers and writers in the United States whom he found on the Internet and whose quotations he used in his manifesto.17

Another lone wolf who posted a manifesto on the Internet before his terrorist attack was Joseph Stack. After setting fire to his home in Austin, Texas, on the morning of February 18, 2010, Stack flew his single-engine plane into a downtown Austin office building in which nearly two hundred people worked for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). One person besides Stack was killed in the attack. Stack was motivated by a hatred for the IRS, which he blamed for ruining his life. He was particularly upset with a 1986 change in the tax law that prevented contract software engineers like him from taking certain deductions. The new law made it difficult for information-technology professionals to work as self-employed individuals. This forced many of them to become company employees.¹⁸ In his manifesto, Stack wrote about the new tax law, saying that “they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave.”¹⁹ Stack's manifesto revealed the frustration that was building up inside him. He wrote, “I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn't so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.”²⁰

Richard Poplawski, a white supremacist who killed three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in April 2009, used the Internet to frequent a neo-Nazi chat room, “Stormfront,” where he shared his racist, anti-Semitic, and antigovernment views with other like-minded individuals. Finding kindred souls on the Internet seemed to embolden Poplawski. His postings from November 2008 until March 2009 revealed an increasingly confrontational nature. He urged other white supremacists not to “retreat peaceably into the hills,” but rather to strive for “ultimate victory for our people [by] taking back our nation.” He also wrote that he would likely be “ramping up the activism” in the near future.21 Poplawski surfed the Internet to order the AK-47 assault-style rifle that he used in his attack. The Internet seller delivered the rifle to a store, where Poplawski purchased the weapon.²²

Another example of a lone wolf who used the Internet was Colleen LaRose (who is discussed in further detail in chapter 4), also known as “Jihad Jane,” one of the few female lone wolves. She was attracted to the global reach of the Internet and hoped it would aid her in forming a terrorist network in 2008 and 2009 for high-profile attacks in Europe and South Asia. Meanwhile, a US Army major, Nidal Malik Hasan (who is discussed in further detail in chapter 2) opened fire at a soldier-processing center in Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, killing thirteen people and wounding thirty-two others. Hasan used the Internet to communicate with an American-born radical Islamic cleric who at the time was living in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki.

The Internet has been indispensable for lone wolves interested in learning about potential weapons. David Copeland, the British neo-Nazi mentioned earlier, who set off three bombs packed with nails in April 1999, discovered how to make the nail bombs after searching the Internet for information. Among the Internet sources he used were The Terrorist's Handbook and How to Make Bombs: Book Two. He acquired the bomb-making materials from shops and hardware stores but was not able to effectively assemble the necessary ingredients that were detailed in the web-based guides. He therefore used less-sophisticated bombs comprised of fireworks material and nails that were still powerful enough to kill three people and injure 139 others.²³

Another British lone wolf terrorist, Nicky Reilly, who had converted to Islam, downloaded videos from YouTube in order to learn how to make nail bombs. His attempt in May 2008 failed, as noted earlier, when one of the three nail bombs he was preparing in the restroom of a restaurant in Exeter exploded in his hands. Reilly was in contact over the Internet with two men believed to be living in Pakistan who encouraged Reilly to perpetrate a suicide terrorist attack. The men, who were never located, discussed with Reilly potential targets, including an attack on police, civil servants, or the general public. They ultimately persuaded him to commit an attack on the public.24

The Internet also provides lone wolves with an easy means for conducting surveillance of potential targets, including detailed maps of airports and buildings, flight and train schedules, and even computer images of the inside of a specific plane, indicating how many passengers will be on a flight and the exact location of available seats. This could be valuable information for a lone wolf hijacker, who would not want to seize a plane with too many passengers on board, since that could make controlling the passengers difficult. Knowing the seating chart would also be an advantage because the hijacker would know exactly where everyone is located and could choose a seat that works to his or her advantage. For example, there have been plots by terrorists to use liquid bombs on a plane that require the terrorists to assemble the bomb while onboard due to the unstable nature of the explosives (which could explode prematurely). A lone wolf could, therefore, use the Internet to choose a seat in the rear of the plane by the bathroom in order to not be noticed missing for an extended period of time as he or she assembles the bomb.

The Internet not only offers lone wolves a convenient way to conduct surveillance of a target, but it also can be the target itself. The lone wolf cyberterrorist threat includes using the Internet and other communication and information systems that are linked by computers to cause disruptions and chaos in government, businesses, and everyday life. The threat of cyber attacks has received increased attention in recent years. Most of this attention, however, has focused on foreign governments and terrorist groups launching cyber attacks, not on lone wolves. Yet lone wolves have demonstrated throughout history that they should not be ignored. A computer-savvy lone wolf could be as dangerous as the most sophisticated terrorist group or cell in using the Internet to perpetrate a major cyberterrorist attack. Cyberterrorism may also be a natural fit for lone wolves who prefer to stay at home and perpetrate their attacks over the Internet, whether that be sending computer viruses or hacking into government databases and deleting or altering files. The lure of never having to venture out into the “real world” but instead being able to launch an attack from the comfort and privacy of their own home is something that isolated and socially maladjusted lone wolves may find appealing.

Perhaps one of the most obvious and yet overlooked reasons for why the Internet is the lifeblood for many potential lone wolf terrorists is the same reason it is the lifeblood for many scholars, professionals, and the curious public—namely, the addictive appeal of finding out virtually everything about anything at any time one chooses to do so. From using Google to research any topic, issue, or person to downloading books, articles, documents, and other materials, the world has opened up to anybody with access to a computer or smartphone. While for the most part this is a positive development, the downside is that a lot of material online is inflammatory and can inspire to take action those who may otherwise have never thought to do so. A blog or a webpage does not have to be controlled by extremists to have a catalyzing effect on volatile individuals.

Furthermore, even legitimate sources of information accessed on the Internet can propel individuals into violent action, whereas years ago such people may not have even thought about current affairs or any other issue. No longer do people have to go to a library, buy a newspaper, visit a bookstore, or attend a lecture to learn about the world around them. The Internet provides them with sufficient information to formulate views on any topic or issue they choose. For some potential lone wolves, this may be all that is needed to fuel hidden passions that can lead them to violence.

Another often-overlooked aspect of the technological and Internet age we are living in is that an individual can be “connected” to people, things, and ideas while at the same time being isolated, anonymous, and very alone. Individuals can hide behind screen names and yet share details about their lives with others while never having to meet face-to-face. People can walk down the street and be oblivious to all that is around them while they are tuned into their smartphone, iPod, or any other device providing them with music, conversation, or other information. We are living in a society where eye contact and interpersonal relations can be replaced by e-mails, texting, and tweets. All this plays into the hands of lone wolves, who can remain “alone,” if they choose to do so, while still connecting with the world around them.

LEADERLESS TERRORISM

The growth of lone wolf terrorism can also be viewed as part of a trend in terrorism that began in the 1990s and has been described as “leaderless resistance.” The main proponent of this form of terrorism was Louis Beam, a white supremacist who, in 1992, wrote an influential article, “Leaderless Resistance,” that was published in his own journal, the Seditionist. Beam called for the creation of small, autonomous, underground groups that would be driven by ideology and shared beliefs rather than the direction of leaders and members of organizations. In his article, Beam credited the origins of the concept of “leaderless resistance” to a retired US Air Force colonel, Ulius Amoss, who several decades earlier had proposed the strategy as a defense against a Communist takeover of the United States. For Beam, the strategy now was needed “to defeat state tyranny.” The advantage of leaderless resistance over other strategies was that only those participating in an attack or any other type of action would know of the plans, therefore reducing the chance of leaks or infiltration. As Beam wrote, “All individuals and groups operate independently of each other and never report to a central headquarters or single leader for direction or instruction…. Participants in a program of Leaderless Resistance through phantom cell or individual action must know exactly what they are doing, and exactly how to do it.”25

It is not just white supremacists who have followed the strategy of leaderless resistance. So too have environmental extremist groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, which are not actually groups but rather small autonomous cells with no central leadership. The same is true for antiabortion militant movements such as the Army of God. Many Islamic extremists have also followed a form of “leaderless resistance,” which terrorism scholar Marc Sageman aptly describes as “leaderless jihad.” These are Islamic militants who do not rely on direction or orders from al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. As Sageman notes, these extremists “form fluid, informal networks that are self-financed and self-trained. They have no physical headquarters or sanctuary, but the tolerant virtual environment of the Internet offers them a semblance of unity and purpose. Theirs is a scattered, decentralized social structure—a leaderless jihad.”26

There have been numerous cases of leaderless jihadist attacks in recent years. This does not mean, however, that in all cases “face-to-face radicalization has been replaced by online radicalization.”²⁷ Islamic militants can still form leaderless jihadist links with each other in “real life,” such as through meetings at mosques, coffee shops, schools, and so forth. But Sageman is correct in viewing the Islamic extremist threat as coming more from informal networks of small numbers of militants rather than from large-scale, hierarchal organizations. With so many different types of terrorists adopting a “leaderless” philosophy but not all fitting into a “resistance” category (hence Sageman's leaderless jihad phrase), it would seem that a better term to use would be leaderless terrorists. This would, of course, include the multitude of lone wolves with varied causes who operate either entirely alone or with minimal assistance from others.

The idea that the world of terrorism is being populated by individuals not formally linked to an organization or central command is a difficult concept for many people to accept. The history of terrorism has been characterized by many well-known, organized groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and hundreds of others active in previous decades. There is also an assumption held by many that terrorist operations are complex endeavors that require detailed planning, resources, training, and leadership directed by large-scale organizations. That is not always the case, and as we have seen in recent years, the number of terrorist incidents and plots involving terrorists not affiliated with any group has increased. This adds to the challenges in combating terrorism. While centralized and even decentralized groups provide governments and others dedicated to fighting terrorism with a concrete object on which to focus their policies, the leaderless terrorists are more problematic. They are difficult to identify, track, and arrest. It is also difficult to proclaim a “war on terrorism” or any other catchy phrase when the threat emanates from leaderless terrorists.

Government, law-enforcement, and intelligence agencies from around the world have taken notice of the leaderless terrorist and lone wolf threat. The Canadian government's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre warned in 2007 that “lone wolves motivated by Islamist extremism are a recent development. Islamist terrorist strategies are now advocating that Muslims take action at a grassroots level, without waiting for instructions.”28 An Australian government white paper stated that, in terms of al Qaeda and Islamic extremism, “‘lone-wolf’ attackers with no group affiliation but motivated by the same ideology can emerge at any time.”²⁹ And it is not just the lone wolf seduced by jihadism that worries officials. The European Law Enforcement Agency (Europol) noted in 2010 that, in terms of right-wing terrorism in Britain, “individuals motivated by extreme right-wing views, acting alone, pose far more of a threat than the current [right-wing] networks or groups.”³⁰ Meanwhile, a 2009 US Department of Homeland Security report stated that “lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.”³¹

THE DEFINITIONAL DILEMMA

Any book on terrorism raises the question of how exactly does the author define terrorism. The problem with most definitions is that they are either too narrow and thereby exclude many significant cases of terrorist activity or are so broad as to be quite useless in understanding the terrorist phenomenon. There are also obvious biases and contradictions in many definitions, since they are usually based on ideological and political perceptions of the terrorist threat as well as the bureaucratic interests of various government agencies and departments around the world. The more disagreements there are on defining terrorism, the more terrorists can benefit by the added confusion on the issue.

The difficulty in defining terrorism has given rise to the famous slogan, “One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.” Communities that support various groups in their violent acts do not necessarily see them as “terrorists.” Since the essence of terrorism is the effect that violent acts can have on various targets and audiences, it would make more sense to talk about terrorist-type tactics—which can be utilized by extremist groups, guerrillas, governments, and lone wolves—than to attempt to determine who exactly qualifies as a “terrorist.” The blowing up of planes, whether done by lone wolves or organized groups, is terrorism. The same is true for hijackings, assassinations, bombings, product contaminations, and other violent acts. Several decades of futile efforts to reach a consensus on defining terrorism should be a clear enough signal to move on to other aspects of the terrorist threat.32

However, more than twenty-five years of being involved in terrorism research and analysis has convinced me that readers and others expect some type of definition to be offered. This volume's appendix provides a detailed discussion of the key elements needed for a practical definition of terrorism, in general, and lone wolf terrorism, in particular. For now, though, we can think of lone wolf terrorism as the use or threat of violence or nonviolent sabotage (including cyber attacks) by an individual acting alone, or with minimal support from one or two other people, to further a political, social, religious, financial, or other related goal, or, when not having such an objective, nevertheless has the same effect upon government and society in terms of creating fear and/or disrupting daily life and/or causing government and society to react with heightened security and/or other responses.

We need, however, to go beyond the issue of definitions of terrorism in order to fully understand the motivations of lone wolf terrorists. Why exactly do lone wolves do the things they do? Is it for the same reasons that terrorist groups and cells perpetrate their violence, or are there some unique characteristics that propel the individual terrorist into action? Addressing this issue is an important part of understanding the lone wolf phenomenon.