The emergence of AQ lone wolfs is something that has concerned me for a while. We’ve certainly seen some instances, from a teenage boy in Tampa to a commando limo driver at LAX, but the true potential of this threat has yet to be realized. This is also one of those areas, where once the ice is broken, the frequency of attacks will increase.
“Man arrested last week allegedly sought bombmaking material. In April, court documents allege, Sayed Abdul Malike tried to buy enough explosives to blow up “a mountain.” No one knows what Mr. Malike’s specific plan might have been, or whether it would have succeeded, but thanks to an alert shop owner the Afghan-born legal resident will go before the federal court in Brooklyn for a bail hearing on a drug charge related to his quest to buy explosives. While federal authorities are still piecing together the story, the details so far appear to exemplify a threat that can be just as dangerous and elusive as a hard line terror cell: The lone-wolf terrorist sympathizer. With the nation’s terrorism alert ratcheted up to orange, terrorism experts cite concern about people who are not part of organized groups like Al Qaeda, but are inclined to act in sympathy with their aims. ” See TRC for more details