Leaving The Pack Behind

The wolf is known as an apex predator, one that has virtually no serious rivals of its own, residing at the top of its food chain. Generally the wolf in the wild is a very social animal that is part of a pack where parents teach young wolves in the ways of leadership and survival. Normally, the pack consists of a male, a female, and their offspring, essentially making the pack a nuclear family. The size of the pack may change over time and is controlled by several factors, including habitat, personalities of individual wolves within a pack, and food supply. Packs can contain between 2 and 20 wolves, though 8 is a more typical size.

Occasionally, there are single wolves in nature, often older animals who have been driven from their packs, or young adults who are trying to find new territory and establish themselves as leaders. But in human nature, there is the phenomenon of the lone wolf, the criminal offender, the killer who strikes from the wilderness. There was Eric Rudolph, who exploded a bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, who also bombed an abortion clinic in 1997. There is also Timothy McVeigh who blew up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City and John Allen Muhammad the Washington D.C. sniper to name just a few.

2009 has been a bad year for lone wolf attacks. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a 23-year-old shot two young army men, killing one at a Little Rock, Arkansas, military recruiting center. White supremacist James von Brunn shot and killed a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Scott Roeder shot and killed a late-term abortion physician, Dr George Tiller in the foyer of his church in Wichita, Kansas.

What is it that drives these people to commit such horrendous crimes? What can law enforcement officers, especially intelligence analysts who are trying to prevent further crimes, do to frustrate the lone wolf operator? To answer these, and other compelling questions concerning the lone wolf terrorist please go to the following links:

• FBI Seeks to Target Lone Wolf Offenders. Wall Street Journal. June 15, 2009
• Lone Wolf Lessons. Stratfor. June 3, 2009.
• Lone Wolf Attacks and the Difference between Violent Extremism and Terrorism. East West Institute. April 24, 2009.
  
• The Lone Wolf Disconnect. Stratfor. January 30, 2008.
• Lone-Wolf Terrorism. Instituut voor Veiligheids - en Crisismanagement. June 7, 2007.
  
• The Challenge of the Lone Wolf. Stratfor. May 30, 2007.