While Ahmad Khan Rahami might have planted the bombs in Manhattan and New Jersey on his own, he did not plan his attack or “become radicalized” simply by reading jihadist propaganda online, as Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and others have implied. Matthew Levitt explains:
The . . . fundamental problem with references to “lone wolves” . . . is that the term is largely a misnomer. Since wolves are pack animals, “lone wolf” is meant to conjure up the image of someone who has rejected his nature and is now acting completely independently—a rogue individual operating outside the scope of any cell, network, or group. But while there are cases of individuals . . . who attack on their own with no formal ties to any group, those rare cases are the exceptions that prove the rule. More often than not, evidence indicates that suspects thought to have been lone wolves might more accurately be described as known wolves—people whose radicalization, suspicious travel, and changes in behavior were observed by acquaintances.
That already appears to be the case with Rahami. He apparently traveled to Pakistan in 2005 and then again for three months in 2011. More recently, he lived in Quetta—home of the Afghan Taliban Shura Council—for nearly a year until March 2014; a younger brother said he had also visited Afghanistan during that time. . . .
It’s not just the pattern of his travels that suggests Rahami’s radicalization wasn’t primarily mediated by the Internet. Based on the sophistication of the bombs Rahami purportedly constructed, authorities suspect he received some sort of personalized explosives training. . . .
Rahami may turn out to be a lone offender, but he is unlikely to be a truly lone wolf. . . . And given the evidence available so far, he may have more to do with al-Qaeda—the persistent terrorist group many have already forgotten—than with the still dangerous but now decaying Islamic State.
More about: Al Qaeda, ISIS, Politics & Current Affairs, Taliban, Terrorism
