Lone Wolf Terrorism (12 page)

There was also a difference among the lone wolves who did not die in their attacks regarding how they viewed their actions after they were arrested. Secular and single-issue lone wolves expressed some degree of guilt or “apology” for their violence, while the criminal and idiosyncratic lone wolves remained unapologetic. McVeigh claimed that he was not aware that there was a daycare center in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and that, had he known, he might have chosen a different target. While Breivik did not feel remorse for his twin terror attacks in Norway, he did acknowledge to his lawyer that what he did was indeed “atrocious.” Rudolph expressed remorse over the bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and even some doubts about the bombings of abortion clinics and other targets in a letter he sent to his mother while he was in prison. In court, Van der Graaf stated that he still “wrestled” with the question of whether he was justified in killing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn.

There was no remorse, however, shown by Graham, the criminal lone wolf, after he was arrested for blowing up a plane carrying his mother and forty-three other people in order to cash an insurance policy. Likewise, Koupparis showed no remorse for his dioxin plot in Cyprus. Idiosyncratic lone wolves Kaczynski and Kurbegovic also never expressed any regrets for their violence. In terms of the religious lone wolf cases we examined, Hasan, as of November 2012, has yet to speak about the shootings at Fort Hood, while Von Brunn was killed in his attack at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It is unlikely, however, that religious lone wolves would express any doubts or guilt over their actions, since that would make them question their religion
or at least their interpretation of what their religion teaches them, which could be a very painful experience.

We have seen in this chapter how lone wolf terrorism is a diverse phenomenon that can have as much, and sometimes even more, impact on governments and societies than violence committed by larger and more organized terrorist groups. We now turn to a discussion of why lone wolves can be so dangerous and why they are prime candidates to use weapons of mass destruction.

One of the unique characteristics that separates terrorism from all other types of conflicts is the ability of a single incident to throw an entire nation into crisis and create repercussions far beyond the original event. The taking of American hostages at the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979, for example, led to a more than fourteen-month-long crisis that virtually paralyzed the administration of President Jimmy Carter and may have led to his defeat in the 1980 presidential election. The September 11, 2001, hijacking-suicide attacks in the United States changed the course of US domestic and foreign policy for years afterward. For many Americans, it was the first time they seriously thought about the threat of terrorism. And the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, led to deteriorating relations between India and Pakistan. India accused Pakistan of being involved in the shootings that left more than 160 people dead. Many other countries have also seen a terrorist incident affect government and society long after the event is over.

Yet for all the crises and repercussions that terrorism has caused in the past, the potential for a major, successful terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction is the most troubling. The fatality level would likely be higher than any previous terrorist incident, with one estimate running as high as between one and three million people killed if there were an anthrax attack over Washington, DC.
¹
Such an event would also create a medical, political, and social crisis unparalleled in our history. How real, then, are the prospects for such an attack, and how likely are lone wolves to be among the perpetrators?

TERRORISTS AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

When I first began writing about the potential of terrorists using weapons of mass destruction (commonly referred to as “WMD”) in the late 1980s,
²
there were two main criticisms leveled at anybody dealing with this topic. The first was that you might be giving new ideas to terrorists, who were busy at the time setting off car bombs, hijacking planes, kidnapping individuals, and doing other types of conventional terrorist attacks throughout the world. The assumption then was that terrorists did not know much about these weapons, so the less said or written about the subject, the better. The days of WMD terrorism being a taboo topic, however, are long gone. Today, there are countless books, articles, Internet websites, television commentaries, and government reports devoted to this issue.

The second criticism was that terrorists did not have the capabilities to effectively acquire and use WMDs, and, therefore, any publications that warned about the threat would needlessly alarm the public. That criticism can still be heard today. The example that is often pointed to is the failure of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo to launch a successful WMD attack despite a multiyear research effort to acquire and use such weapons and virtually unlimited funds and personnel to support that effort. Their 1995 sarin nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway did not cause maximum casualties (twelve people died), mainly because the cult had not manufactured a potent-enough batch of the nerve agent. Even if they had, the group still chose a poor delivery method to disperse the sarin; they simply left several punctured containers on the floor of the five subway trains they attacked. Aum also failed in its efforts to produce biological agents.
³

The thinking is that if Aum could not perpetrate an effective attack with a weapon of mass destruction, then why should we worry about this threat? There are, however, plenty of reasons to worry. First, Aum's large size (approximately fifty thousand members) may have actually worked against the cult's efforts to launch a major, successful chemical or biological terrorist attack. Bureaucratic politics,
factions, divisions in the group, and lack of focus and coordination all can add to the problems that large groups sometimes face in planning and implementing a terrorist operation. Furthermore, Aum's members were constantly striving to please their leader and guru, Shoko Asahara, and were basically on a “fishing expedition” to find the most effective weapon, including conventional weapons, for an attack.
⁴
The ineptitude shown in the cult's efforts to devise an effective delivery system for the sarin nerve gas indicates that the group had not researched thoroughly or correctly understood the dispersal method regarding chemical and biological agents.
⁵

The technological revolutionary age that we are now living in, however, should aid future terrorists in overcoming the challenges in properly dispersing WMDs, including dealing with issues such as wind direction, sunlight, and temperature when releasing biological agents. As more information becomes available on the Internet and from other sources, we can expect to see more groups and individual terrorists experimenting with dispersal techniques. As analysts at Sandia National Laboratories point out, “The ever increasing technological sophistication of society continually lowers the barriers, resulting in a low but increasing probability of a high consequence bioterrorism event.”
⁶

Not all terrorists, though, would be interested in acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction. One of the major factors that could inhibit a group from using these weapons is concern that an attack would create a backlash among the organization's supporters. Many terrorist groups, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army when it was active in Northern Ireland, depend upon the support—political, logistical, and financial—of significant segments of the population. While its “constituency” may not necessarily approve of the group's violent acts, they nevertheless support the group's political objectives. That support could be eroded if such a group were to use weapons of mass destruction. Supporters may condone certain killings as necessary to further the cause, but it is quite another thing to justify killing thousands of people.

It is not just the reaction from their supporters that would inhibit many terrorist groups from launching an attack with a weapon of mass destruction. There would also be concern that such an attack would unleash too strong a response from the government that is the target of the attack. While eliciting a repressive response that curtails civil liberties is sometimes the goal of terrorist groups, since such a response could turn the population against the government, a WMD attack would likely result in the enthusiastic support of the public to crush the group responsible by eliminating it through arrests and other acts.

Many terrorists might also be concerned about the personal risks involved in using WMDs. Terrorists tend to work with what they are familiar with. Conventional explosives, automatic weapons, and rocket-propelled grenades are among the weapons in the comfort zone of most terrorists. The fear of being infected with a biological agent or being exposed to radiation when working with a nuclear weapon could scare away many terrorists. Further, if the terrorists believe that conventional attacks, such as car bombings, hijackings, armed assaults, are meeting their objectives, there would be little incentive to launch a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack.

What type of terrorists, then, would be interested in using weapons of mass destruction? It would likely be those who exhibit the following characteristics: a general, undefined constituency whose possible reaction to a WMD attack does not concern the terrorists; a perception that conventional terrorist attacks (car bombings, hijackings, assassinations) are no longer effective and that a higher form of violence or a new technique is needed; and a willingness to take risks by experimenting with and using unfamiliar weapons.
⁷
Among the groups that could be described as meeting these criteria are doomsday religious or millenarian cults and neo-Nazi and white-supremacist groups.
⁸
These types of terrorist groups have amorphous constituencies whose concern about a public backlash is unlikely to deter the use of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. Furthermore, they are likely to view conventional terrorist tactics as
insufficient for gaining the attention and reaction they seek. They might, therefore, be willing to experiment with unfamiliar weapons.

For example, among the reasons cited for Aum Shinrikyo's sarin attack on Tokyo's subway system was the goal of setting in motion a sequence of events that would eventually lead to Armageddon, a prediction that had been made by the cult's leader, Shoko Asahara. Another reported reason for the attack was to create a crisis in Japan that would preoccupy or topple the Japanese government and thereby prevent an anticipated raid by Japanese authorities on the cult's headquarters. Conventional weapons were likely viewed by the cult as inadequate to bring about either of these objectives. White supremacists and neo-Nazis have also been attracted to weapons of mass destruction, due to the potential of killing large numbers of people. In one incident, a white-supremacist group, known as The

Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, intended to poison the water supplies of major US cities in the mid-1980s with potassium chloride. When federal agents raided the group's compound in Arkansas, they discovered a large cache of weapons, including thirty gallons of potassium cyanide.
⁹

Religious militants are also potential users of WMDs. If terrorists believe that acts of violence are not only politically but also morally justified, there is a powerful incentive for any type of attack. The belief that one is rewarded in the afterlife for violence perpetrated on earth encourages the undertaking of high-risk and high-casualty attacks. One of the biggest worries after the 9/11 attacks was whether al Qaeda was going to drop the other shoe with a major WMD attack. Although they did not, the group was certainly thinking about it. Documents and equipment discovered in Afghanistan in 2002 indicated that al Qaeda was considering the use of biological weapons and had constructed a laboratory near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan to develop anthrax.
¹⁰
In addition, al Qaeda was interested in nuclear
weapons. A twenty-five-page essay titled “Superbomb” was discovered in 2002 in the Kabul home of Abu Khabab, a senior al Qaeda official. That document included information on different types of nuclear weapons, the properties of nuclear materials, and the physics and effects of nuclear explosions.
¹¹

Groups that have the sponsorship of a foreign government may also be potential candidates to use weapons of mass destruction. Due to such sponsorship, they could easily be provided with the necessary training, resources, and weapons, particularly in the case of chemical and biological agents. The risk, however, for any government supplying terrorists with these weapons is the possibility of the terrorists turning them against that government itself one day. State sponsors of terrorism also have to be convinced that any attack with a weapon of mass destruction by a group they are supporting cannot be traced back to that government. Otherwise, they may face a massive retaliatory strike by the country that was targeted.

Retaliation, of course, is not a concern for lone wolf terrorists. In fact, they have very little to worry about in terms of the reactions of government or society should they use a WMD. They have no supporters or financial and political backers who might be alienated by a WMD attack and no headquarters or training camps that could be hit in retaliatory raids. A lone wolf might also believe that committing a conventional terrorist attack similar to those occurring regularly around the world would not yield as much publicity and notoriety as an attack with a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon.

One of the biggest reasons why lone wolves are likely to use a weapon of mass destruction is that these individuals have proven time after time that they can “think outside the box.” They are not afraid to try new things. We have seen how a lone wolf, Mario Buda, committed the first vehicle bombing in the United States in 1920. Although not a WMD, Buda's vehicle bomb nevertheless demonstrated the creative nature of lone wolves, a characteristic necessary for those terrorists who might use WMDs. Buda had no idea if his plan would work; there had not been any standoff attacks like that
attempted in the United States. The idea to put explosives in a horse-drawn wagon, park it near his targets on Wall Street, and then walk away after setting a timer was novel for those times. There had been an attempt in France in 1800 to assassinate First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte (before he became emperor) with a bomb that had been built into a barrel on a horse-drawn cart. That attempt failed, and the bomb exploded after Napoleon's carriage had passed the spot in the street where the horse and cart were parked. Approximately fifty-two people were either killed or injured in the blast. It is doubtful that Buda was aware of this novel use of a horse and cart for a terrorist attack, since it happened more than a hundred years before he sprang into action on Wall Street.
¹²

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. IVINS

Another example of a lone wolf thinking outside the box—and this time using a weapon of mass destruction—is the case of Bruce Ivins. Ivins was responsible for the 2001 anthrax letter attacks in the United States, which represented the first time anthrax was sent through the mail with the intent to infect people who opened the letters. His story is revealing for how dangerous lone wolves can be.