Terrorist acts conducted by individuals acting on their own, inspired by others, completely alone, not so much alone, it is not a new phenomenon. But for the past few years, weve seen an alarming increase. And a number of what some would as lone wolves, lone offenders. E isis has been proactive in using their Global SocialMedia Presence in particular, to conscript individuals, some who have personal problems and some inspired by belonging to a higher cause, to commit acts in their name. Especially if they cannot be able to join the Islamic State, in its socalled caliphate, when that existed. It is now falling apart in iraq and syria. But meanwhile, in other parts of the world, and israel in particular, we are seeing a an sharp rise as well, of individuals taking it upon themselves to carry out acts of violence, without having being recruited by or trained by or armed or funded by an actual group. So the question for todays session is whether this is a looming threat, or a passing fad. So i am very pleased to have three good friends on the panel today, dr. Boaz ganor is from at the ict counterterrorism center, and the dean of the Lauder School of government and diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center in university in herzliya, israel. Bruce hoffman, is director of both the center for Security Studies and Security Studies program at georgetown university, edmund a. Walsh school of foreign service, and marlene mazell is here on leave from her position as director of counterterrorism at the Israeli Ministry of justice. Marlene is a good friend, and i sit on the board for boazs Counterterrorism Institute in israel. I will also be teaching this coming semester in bruces program. As it happens, i happen to have some expertise on the matter. [laughter] so, with no further ado, we will start with boaz, then go to bruce, then marlene. Then i will moderate from the table, the q a sessions until we and at 2 00. Boaz gainor, please. And i would add, please silence your cell phones. Thank you very much, matt. It is a pleasure to be here at the Washington Institute, and in this distinguished panel with you. And in this distinguished panel with you. I was given only 10 minutes, and it takes me more to stop might stop my engines, but i will try the impossible and try to squeeze my thoughts into the 10 minutes of the session. I would like to open with trying to allocate where the phenomenon , of the lone wolf stems, so let among the overall different types of terrorist attacks altogether reared so, let me start by classification. I will start by classifying different perpetrators of terrorism. The first type is the one we are discussing today, i call it the personal initiative attack. It is more known under the title of the lone wolf. Who is the lone wolf, it is an individual, that has been radicalized, by this or the aftersource, and one day being radicalized, he decides that he wants to do something about it. He has two options. One option is to join a terrorist organization, maybe to iraq orle fighter syria and the other option is to , become a homegrown terrorist. To conduct a terrorist attack in the territory that he is living in. This is the lone wolf attacker. He has been inspired by a terrorist organization, and many scholars today questioned the fact that he is a lone wolf altogether, because almost always, there is some connection to a terrorist organizations. Or at least, inspiration which has been done by a terrorism organization. I would use the term lone wolf, because the lone wolf, being inspired by a terrorist organizations, doesnt have any operational size with the terrorist organization. Meaning that the terrorist organization is not necessarily involved in the initiation, planning preparation and , execution of the attack altogether. The second group of perpetrators, is what i call be independent network. They are practically a bunch of lone wolf, a group of loan lone wolves. This group, usually a small group of 4, 5, people together, usually friends or family members in some cases, for example the San Bernardino husband and wife an independent network. Why . Es . Roup of lone wolv because it is an inspiration without the involvement, the operational involvement of a terrorist organization. By the way, if you were to ask them before the attacks, they would refer to themselves as activists of isis or al qaeda or whatever, and after the attack the terrorist organization would take responsibility for what they do but since they do not , have any operational ties with the organization, they were just inspired. The third type of a terrorist attack i refer to as organized terrorism. Either sleeper cells or infiltrated cells. This is a different ballgame altogether. Here we are talking about a group, it could be an individual that has been recorded to a terrorist organization, trained, and the terrorist organization is involved in all the operational background and activities that launch at the end of the day. I have good news and bad news. When i compare the loan wolf attack to organize terrorism, the good news is that usually lone wolf attacks are not that lethal. The number of casualties are limited. Of coarse there are exceptions. Nice was an exception. How many people can be hurt with a lone wolf attack . Most of the attacks, the majority are using weapons, a knife or and ask or a run down in some cases they are using light weapons, very seldom do they use explosive devices. When we are talking about this phenomenon, it is limited, the number are limited. When we compare that to the organized terrorism, the organized terror cell conducted attack inn paris, the the airport of belgium or this is organized terrorism. These are mass casualties. That is the good news in reference to the lone wolf. Terms, ig passed explain in a minute why, we used to believe that the intelligence is incapable of dealing with this phenomenon of lone wolf, why . Traditional intelligence and communication intelligence is based on the fact that there is some kind of a discourse between at least two people that share a secret, the secret of what theyre planning to attack. Even either you have an agent that is telling you that or you have the ability to wiretap and listen. There is a need for conversation. In the lone wolf, there is no conversation in most cases, everything starts in ands with the mind of one person. Intelligence seems to be useless in this group regard. In this regard. The classification of the terrorist attacks, i would suggest we do not have an type enough time to drill into it but we have two cases in our minds will we are trying to classify different types of terror attacks, one case has to do with the level of involvement of the terrorist organization in the attack starting with knowing and ending with full organized terrorist attack by the organization. The other scale would be the level of independence of the attacker. Is he really independent or did he share a secret with his. Riends or other peers did he consult with anybody, did accomplices they gave him passive or active support, does he conduct the like anith others independent network and so forth. Once we have the scales we can andack to the specification we can see how organize terrorism falls into the scale and we can judge which attack, what type of attack was conducted at the time. It is not just a theoretical discussion, it is important because we need different operational concepts of terrorism activities in reference to lone, local networks, and organized terrorism altogether. Lets zoom in on the subject matter of the lone wolf. When we are talking about the lone wolf attack, usually the attacks, molotov cocktails, bombing, and israel bulldozing, running down with the bulldozer. In some cases shootings and ied bombings altogether. One exception, suicide attacks were not conducted by lone wolf. We need to define the term. The way that i describe suicide attacks is the type of the person who is strapping themselves to a suicide belt or carrying an explosive device and the button. Ushing those are always organized terrorism, there is always an Organization Behind it. Of the dayat the end that there is one individual conducting this but this is organized terrorism, not lone wolf attacks. When we are talking about the rationale, the best news i can give you today that based on my experience in counterterrorism, i am in this field more than 35 years and i can tell you the base of my ex. In diameter generalizing, there will be a rationale actor. Are khaki in general living cost and benefit. And choosing the alternative which they believe is more efficient than costly. That is what rational people do, that is what you do, what i do every day, that is what the terrorists are doing but they have a different costbenefit calculation that we have in the western society and in other places. They have the subjective calculus of cost and benefit. A group counterterrorism expert needs to take out his own considerations, his own costbenefit calculations and put on his head the counterparty, enemy calculation. The costbenefit calculation. The bad news is that practically there is no one generic calculation. The costbenefit of isis is ,ifferent from al qaeda different from isis, different from hezbollah. Of isis todayions are different and will be different in one years time. The bad news i have is when we are talking about lone wolfs, it is difficult to understand the rationale because it is the rationale of an individual and not of a group or an ideological concept. I want to show you for pictures that have been taken in israel in which the common denominator are four lone wolves that have been arrested after stabbing people in the street. They are being handcuffed and to thescorted through police car. Probably they are going to spend life in jail. There is another common denominator and you will see it immediately. In the pictures. The other common denominator is the smile on the face. This is not a coincidence. Visited chinatown yesterday in new york and there was an in front of my face, the nypd arrested the criminal there. He was walking to the police car handcuffed, he did not smile but they are smiling and they are smiling because i would argue, this is the deflection of the calculus of costbenefit. What they believe is what they did right now am a theyre going to get high price, they will spend life in prison probably thingey did the honorable to do. They did something which is more beneficial than costly from their point of view. This is our task as good experts to crack down the smile, to understand the calculus and then continuity of counter messages and so on and so forth. I use the term jihadi zombies to explain this concept. The first reason, you have to understand what zombies are and second the term zombie does not have any shred of honor. I want to take this concept of the honorable thing to do from them. You would see in the other zombie another jihadi next to my compass and israel, stabbing every person that is waiting in a public bus stop altogether. That is jihadi zombie. It is not just israel. This is the jihadi zombie that was conducting an attack in london. N the suburbs of and not running away. Actually covering his head hands with the blood of the victim and preaching to everybody who was ready to take a video clip about his reasons behind it. Also United States, this is the 2014, theompson and africanamerican who converted to islam and went to wage jihad against nypd officers. Nutshell, one new phenomenon that we see is the growing threat of lone wolves, radicalized islam is terrorists which are converts. We had other cases of converts including in israel. Ews that converted to islam. It is much easier to radicalize theperson becoming newcomer. Last and not least and i would limit myself, i would say that we used to believe that intelligence is useless because of the secret kept in their mind. We were wrong. Instead of medication sources intelligence we have found that we have the ability to understand, maybe to predict what is going to happen. Many of those activists give prior warning because they want to brag about it, they do the honorable thing to do and they want wonder that people believe that is with they did were the honorable thing to do and they are sharing that over the social network. This is an example who is saying allah name of all a who decided to become a martyr. This is a warning. The attack in berlin is an outcome of the understanding of the attacker. The Lesson Learned from the attack that occurred before at random, isis published what should be done if you want to conduct an effective rundown of activity. After the attack they are becoming [inaudible] and what we see is a vicious cycle and i will conclude with that. Starting with the excitement coming from the incitement coming from the organization and moving on with the radicalization process and they decide to do something about it before conducting the attack. In many cases he justified it and publish a vertical platform and this is a fertilizer for further incitement and this is epidemic, becoming epidemic phenomenon. The good news and want to and with i want to and with is counter terrorists can watch that and understand it and analyze it and maybe even prevent it. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. Thank you for speaking today and to serve on this distinguished panel. Let me focus my remarks a bit more on and talk about isis. R the Islamic State or isil and start with a very broad observation that i think boaz would agree with me and i see many people in the audience i have known for decades in the counterterrorism world and i daresay they would as well. Of thethe pathologies study of terrorism and counterterrorism is the collective amnesia or a short memory. This is not that surprising considering the inbox of the threats one has to contend with. One of the problems or challenges is it crowds out historical perspective. In that respect, let me read you and think about who would have said this and when it was said. Tracking down americas and the jews is not impossible. Killing them with a single bullet, a step, or device made up of a popular mix of explosives or hitting them with an iron rod is not impossible. Burning down their property with molotov cocktails is not difficult. With the available means, small groups can prove to be a frightening horror for the americans and the jews. Any takers . Anyone want to guess . Alzawhiri in knights under the profit prophets banner. Was Operation Enduring freedom, he nevertheless had time to write the statement that was designed to resurrect al qaeda and carry on the struggle. The only problem was that it fell on deaf ears. The phenomenon lone wolf terrorism did not materialize until over a decade later with the rise of isis. And that we have the statements nonny al adhnani. Propagandist par excellence of isis. His remarks were almost similar. If you are not able to find an ied or bullet then signal out the disbelieving american, frenchmen, or their allies. Smash his head or slaughter him with a knife or run her run him over in your car or throw him down from a high place or choke him or poison him. It is precisely isiss innovative revolutionary use of social media that has transformed the nature of terrorism in a short span of time but also empowered this group in less than three years to have become one of the most challenging threats we face and one of the most i would argue you will see durable terrorist organizations. You do not have that ability to be revolutionary and innovative and [indiscernible] stay at leasto for the foreseeable future. One of the main reasons for that has been their ability to harness and exploit social media and to summon this broad universe of lone wolves in addition to the more professional terrorist. There is another point where isis unfortunately has been enormously innovative which will have more immediate consequences for us in years to come. The 9 11 model of terrorism, the attacks from september 11, 2001 involve professional terrorists trained overseas, deployed against their target, operating under a very clear hierarchy, commandandcontrol structure with strict operational orders. That was to traditional model of terrorism. The loan wolf model that boaz described to Law Enforcement and authorities in a different way. Tail, they have no are harder to predict. Fortunately, their violence is more limited but nonetheless, their ability to overwhelm, preoccupied, and distract Law Enforcement and intelligence and Security Services is enormous. And yet, what we see is that the most formidable terrorist organization are also the ones that are most innovative and most dynamic. Unfortunately like isis. Isis is in recent months pioneered has pioneered a third variance that goes against the topdown form of terrorism, the 9 11 model, lets say to the bottomup form of terrorism, the lone wolf. Now they have the hybrid which presents new and serious challenges to Law Enforcement and intelligence. This is the new hybrid of enablers that take advantage of lone wolves, individuals that have no prior connection to a terrorist organization that may never have met a terrorist in their life, maybe have not left there on community to train and go overseas, as weve seen in recent years, they are manipulated, exploited, ultimately inspired and animated acts of violence in support of or on behalf of the terrorist organizations aims. Thenew twist is organizations are providing individuals with specific, often very detailed intelligence and targeting instructions. Thus empowering them, making the lone wolf even more of a threat than they have been to date. This new emergence of the different challenge was brought home to me at least last march, when isis released a hit list or targeting list of 8000 names of americans from around the country. When i attempted to print it out, it was not formatted terribly well but it ran to 25 pages. Individuals,mes of both work and home addresses, people who live in the washington am a d. C. Area will recognize some of the addresses. Emailer dresses, sometimes mobile phone numbers, but this was a hit list or target list that isis meant for sleep to sow a certain amount of psychological discord and create alarm and anxiety which is also always the goal of terrorism but encourage and enhance the power of the lone wolf. So, consequently, isis has changed the nature of terrorism in a very short span of time which i think means that it is not going to disappear or fade from the scene anytime soon. The fundamental challenges facing Law Enforcement, intelligence agencies, and