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Why Lone Wolf Attacks Are So Hard To Predict
 [DefenseOne] An FBI analysis of his Google search engine queries revealed a growing interest in martyrdom. In 2013, he reportedly downloaded several videos of Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. His most extreme writings related to Islam come in the form of two religious posts not long before the shooting. They cite martyrdom as a goal but give no explicit indication of an impending attack. The FBI is continuing to investigate Abdulazeez's social media presence, looking for communication exchanges between Abdulazeez and members of known groups like the Islamic State. But none have the fact that no such communication indicators have emerged so far, and that suggests that they likely won't any time soon.In retrospect, those various actions and clues may suggest a terrorist ready to pop. And that's the danger of retrospective analysis. Even those indicators that have the appearance of being indicative don't speak to a cause of violence. Rather, they are unremarkable behaviors that are correlated with a violent incident. (Many people, including Defense One reporters, have seen videos featuring Anwar al-Awlaki and yet have resisted homicidal behavior.) The amount of open-source data available to law enforcement, or journalists, makes correlational analysis easier, but not necessarily more valid. Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 2015-07-23 |
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