Lone wolf Martin Couture-Rouleau roughly fits the profile of the next wave of terrorists. http://t.co/vprgAUjTCG pic.twitter.com/N2wckyAHav
— TorontoStar (@TorontoStar) October 26, 2014
To Jacob Siegel, last week’s attacks in Canada and New York are examples of the new model for terrorist violence in the West:
In recent years, terrorist networks have become more connected to a Western audience at the same time that they have become more physically cut off from the West. Effective counterterrorist measures have disrupted the planning that groups like al Qaeda use to coordinate large attacks, making it harder for them to communicate directly with cells inside Western countries. But with the Internet’s instantaneous web of connections, it’s become easier to reach individual Westerners who can be coaxed or coached into conducting their own attacks. The result is the lone wolves or stray dogs who may lack connections and experience but need only an Internet connection to find inspiration.
Clint Watts, a counterterrorism expert and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, says the current trend started almost a decade ago. The 9/11 model, where terrorist groups would “plan and train together before going to carry out an attack, became defunct around 2005 because counterterrorism pressure picked up so much in the West,” he said.
But David Gomez observes that the Ottawa shooter, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, didn’t exactly fit the “lone wolf” profile:
His life was a train wreck of drugs and mental illness with little or no evidence of organization. While all current evidence points to the fact that Zehaf-Bibeau was most-likely acting alone and without direction, he does not appear to be a classic organized lone wolf. Rather he more closely resembles a spree killer who acts spontaneously, without a plan, attempting to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. Zehaf-Bibeau was on a suicide mission with no expectation of survival, therefore no plan for escape. And as far as we know, he left no manifesto or explanation of his actions. In short, Zehaf-Bibeau was a disorganized murderer, acting out his fantasies.
Jeet Heer has additional thoughts on the attacks:
It’s natural to see terrorism and counter-terrorism as a drama of violence and retribution played out on the international stage. Both Zehaf-Bibeau and Couture-Rouleau certainly seem to have seen themselves as part of a similarly apocalyptic saga—Zehaf-Bibeau, in particular, was said by people at the shelter where he was staying in Ottawa to have spoken in his last days about the end of the world. But it’s worth remembering that Zehaf-Bibeau talked not just about an external battle but an internal struggle with demons, spiritual beings he felt had a real existence. That was a battle he was fighting in his own mind, which may have been the ultimate source of the violence that he inflicted on the world.
Even if Zehaf-Bibeau was more an unstable nut job than a jihadist ideologue, Ben Makuch observes that this hasn’t stopped Canadian jihadists on Twitter from claiming him as one of their own:
One Canadian ISIS militant who identifies himself as Muthanna al-Kanadi online, suspected to be Ahmed Waseem of Windsor, justified Zehaf-Bibeau’s alleged attacks by citing the newest Canadian war in Iraq as reason alone to expect retaliation. “What did Canada expect? they are a nation at war with Islam & is about to kill/bomb more Muslims,” he said in a recent tweet. “What did you want in return Hugs and Kisses?” The fighter, who appears to have been injured in recent engagements in Iraq fighting anti-ISIS forces, said the attack was evidence of a growing trend of domestic terrorism. “I did say before that the Jihad of Yesterday was across the valley but the Jihad of Today is across your doorstep. #OttawaShooting #ISIS,” he said.
In any case, Stephen Walt hopes that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t make good on his promise of a macho response:
Whenever there is some kind of terrorist incident (including failed plots), politicians seem compelled to enact more extensive surveillance regimes and promise more assertive efforts to go after the bad guys, in order to show that they can’t be cowed. But unlike security measures enacted during conventional wars, which are normally lifted once the war is over, the various measures imposed since 9/11 remain firmly in place, even after years go by without another incident. Over time, these measures keep ratcheting up, because every now and then another incident will occur and whoever is then in power will feel they have to “do something,” too. It also reinforces the rhetoric of terrorism that increasingly dominates our public discourse and makes it harder to develop a coherent set of strategic priorities.
