Countering the Threat: Lone Wolves, Homemade Explosives, and the Path to a Safer Future

According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, “lone wolf terrorism” occurs when someone acts alone to commit a terrorist act without the assistance or encouragement of a government or a terrorist organization. There have also been notable examples of lone wolf terrorism in the United States in the past, including that of Nidal Hassan, the infamous 2009 Fort Hood shooter, as well as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who were of Chechen descent.

Today, the most common characteristics of lone wolf terrorists are that they seem to become self-radicalized online and also have no allegiance to any particular state sponsor of terror nor any sort of terrorist organization.

For example, post-bombing investigations revealed that the Tsarnaev brothers had been motivated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that they learned their bomb-making skills online as well, mostly from the instructions given in an Al-Qaeda magazine also found online.

Read more: Homeland Security Today