Lone wolvesGerman official: Lone-wolf terrorists are the greatest threat

Germany’s interior minister said that the greatest terrorist threat Germany faces is no longer the large-scale organization of the al Qaeda stripe, but the independent “lone-wolf” attacker.

Hans-Peter Friedrich said that the independent operator, not directly connected to any major terror network, have radicalized themselves, commonly through jihadist sites on the Internet. “There will likely be more of them because the Islamists’ propaganda networks seem to be further gearing up.”

Friedrich pointed out that the major Muslim extremist groups have decentralized their operations, making it much more difficult to track them.

“There is no more centralized planning… Single terror cells are being sent out, complete with information and propaganda. This is what worries us,” Friedrich said.

There have been several failed or thwarted extremist attacks in Germany, but the first fatalities attributable to a Muslim extremist were in March 2010, when a 21-year old Kosovo-born ethnic Albanian shot and killed two U.S. airmen outside Frankfurt airport. German authorities believe the lone attacker was inspired by watching online Salafist videos.

The Salafi Muslims, who hold to an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, have been increasing their presence and numbers in Germany in recent years.

The Salafi take their name from the Arabic Salaf, meaning “predecessors” or “ancestors,” holding the earliest Muslims as models of Islamic practice.

The term has been in use since the Middle Ages, but today refers to a modern Sunni Islamic movement Salafiyyah, which is intertwined with Wahabism such that the two are considered to be synonomous. In the West, the term is generally applied to Salafi jihadists who consider attacks against civilians to be a legitimate expression of Islam.

The German interior minister’s remarks echo those of security officials in other countries as well.

The United Kingdom and the United States, among many others, while not disregarding the major terrorist networks, have raised their awareness and concern over the “homegrown” terrorist, the independent operator who may not even have had direct contact or training with any of the international networks.

The United States has already experienced such attacks. In November 2009 a U.S. Army doctor, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire on the Fort Hood army base, killing twelve and wounding several others, until he was shot by armed soldiers nearby.

Major Hasan, currently awaiting trial, was born in the United States and raised in Arlington, Virginia. It was subsequently discovered that he had e-mail contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical U.S.-born imam killed in Yemen by a drone-launched missile attack.

The process by which the potential terrorist ultimately develops into a jihadi usually follows a common path. It begins with exposure to the Salafist worldview, followed by a period of self-identification, which is usually catalyzed by a specific event, and during which the “recruit” begins to reject his former worldview and embraces violent jihad as the answer.

Indoctrination follows next, a period during which the aspirant, with support from radicals in his orbit, rejects his former life and accepts Salafism as his guiding purpose.

The final step in the process is what might be called “jihadization,” which is the stage at which the new jihadi receives tactical and operational training, and the planning of attacks against specific targets.

There is no requirement for an Islamic upbringing, or for any Islamic identity at all. In fact, the NYPD director of intelligence analysis, said “the vast majority of individuals who end up radicalizing to violence do not start out as religiously observant or knowledgeable.”