The Legend of the Lone Wolf

Abstract

The paper attempts to demonstrate that all of the perpetrators of the grave terrorist attacks in Europe in the recent years have been connected—by one or maximum two links—to the center and leadership of ISIS in Syria, from whom they received ideological, logistical and financial support—thus contradicting the popular theory of lone wolves. The author reaches the conclusion that in many cases addressing potential lone radicals on Jihadist forums before the attacks was nothing else but a special form of Psyop, with the goal of disrupting counterrorism efforts and spreading fear in societies.

Keywords

• Al-Qaida
• Asymmetric warfare
• Counterterrorism
• Europe and EU
• Terrorism / counterterrorism