Raffaello Pantucci

At last this long-awaited (at least in my mind) paper lands. It provides what I hope is a useful initial scoping exercise into the phenomenon of Lone Wolf terrorism that with further support could be developed into a framework for better understanding and countering this problem – both in its Islamist incarnation, but also in others. I have written bits on this in the past, but this is my first large article on the topic and I hope it generates some feedback and sparks some useful conversations. My hope is to locate support to undertake a longer investigation into this, and any thoughts in this direction are warmly welcomed. A final note to thank Lorenzo and Tim for very useful comments on earlier drafts – and of course thanks to the ICSR team for publishing and organizing the event.

Here is the blurb off the ICSR website, and see below for a link to the paper.

A Typology of Lone Wolves: Preliminary Analysis of Lone Islamist Terrorists

In the latest paper in the series of Developments in Radicalisation and Political Violence, ICSR Associate Fellow, Raffaello Pantucci explores the lone wolf phenomenon.

As Al-Qaeda rethinks its strategy in the West, seen by a lessening capacity to stage large-scale attacks, there has been a rise in the recruitment of self-starters who are often radicalised through the internet. Almost impossible to detect, these ‘lone wolves’ pose new and unique challenges to the authorities and security services in the West.

With this paper Pantucci creates some sort of typology to define this new group and offers some deeper understanding to this ever frequent and increasing threat faced by the West.

The paper can be downloaded here: http://icsr.info/publications/papers/1302002992ICSRPaper_ATypologyofLoneWolves_Pantucci.pdf

For a summary of the launch event which we did in London around it (with charming photo), please look here.