Islamic State lone wolves: the risk in Hong Kong’s strategy
Police were right to raise the spectre of a terrorist attack, but there is a downside to a civilian-based approach
Despite their name, so-called “lone wolf” terrorists need not work alone; they can be organised into “wolf packs”. Both terms describe terror cells that operate without the knowledge or financial support of their parent body.
Yet while separated from their central group, Islamic State (IS) lone wolves and wolf packs seem to often strike on cue when called upon, indirectly, by those leading their movement.
According to Barak Mendelsohn, associate professor of political science at Haverford College and a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute: “Between October 2015 and August 2016, radicalised individuals, as well as ‘wolf packs’, carried out over 20 attacks in response to Islamic State’s call to indiscriminately kill ‘non-believer’ civilians.”
The terror attacks of IS lone wolves need to be understood as acts fuelled by desperation by those without the necessary moorings to their immigrant societies.
For example, according to some reports, the lone wolf attack by an Uzbek national in Stockholm, Sweden, that killed four in April happened after the perpetrator’s application to be a legal resident was rejected.
