Dr Gonzalo Pozo-Martin from the Department of Academic History and International Relations at Stockholm University is answering the questions on the topic whether the balance of power between Russia and Europe has changed in recent years.
Interviewing Team: Igor Shchebetun.
In this double interview, Limes's Director, Dr Lucio Caracciolo, offers his views on ITSS Verona Member Alessio Moroni's book on Italian youth Neo-Fascist movements, 1949-1969, ending with his reflections upon the current far-right scene in Italy.
Interviewing Team: Alessio Moroni and Maria Chiara Aquilino.
The International System and World Order team focussing on Middle East for ITSS Verona interview Waqar Rizvi, host of Indus News, on the recent Iranian Elections.
Interviewing Team: John Devine and Omri Brinner
By: István Hagyó
The long-awaited Biden-Putin Summit took place on the 16th of June in Geneva. The fact that the two sides managed to set up a summit in such a short period of time, taking into consideration previous events that seriously deteriorated their bilateral relations, represents a significant success and shows the willingness and commitment on their part to restabilize the relationship. The Russian military build-up near the Ukrainian border, President Biden calling President Putin a “killer” or the American accusation of Russian interference in 2020 US elections, raised questions on the future of the bilateral relations between the two states. The article analyses whether the summit can lead to a long-term rhetoric change in American-Russian relations.
The relations with each other represents a core role in their global strategy. Therefore, many topics were discussed. From Afghanistan, Iraq, to climate change, Arctics, Ukraine and Alexei Navalny, the growing Russian cybersecurity threat and lastly, the question of nuclear arms control; many of them sensitive and problematic. During the meeting, both leaders were focusing primarily on topics directly affecting their bilateral relations. Progress was seen in three main topics: cybersecurity, nuclear arms control and human rights. These topics require continuous dialogue and are long-term plans, where both sides are interested in solving.
What was discussed during the Biden-Putin Summit:
Return the Ambassadors: Both sides agreed to return their ambassadors, which serves as a positive indicator for a chance of future talks between the two states.
Cybersecurity Task Force: President Biden informed his counterpart regarding his concerns about Russian cyberattacks. The recent attack by Russian hackers, the ransomware strike on an American oil pipeline company obstructed the gasoline supply in the country. President Putin denied all the allegations stating that “most of the cyberattacks in the world are carried out from the cyber realm of the United States”. However, facts show that the most damaging attacks are coming from state-backed Russian hackers. Therefore, Biden drew a redline and informed about 16 types of infrastructure that must be free of cyberattacks. As a result, a common cybersecurity task force will be set up to avoid such escalations and initiate dialogue. The potential of it is unclear, however, the willingness to cooperate at least on a working level represents progress.
Strategic Stability Dialogue on nuclear arms control: Issuing a joint statement on nuclear arms control stating that, “today, we reaffirm the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” In addition, an integrated bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue will be initiated for future nuclear arms control measures.
Human Rights: Biden highlighted the importance of this subject for the American people and for the United States, saying that “it is in our country’s DNA”. It became a sensitive topic, due to the recent imprisonment of the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, currently in jail. According to President Putin, Alexei didn’t respect the law while returning from Germany being on treatment and consciously knowing that he will face imprisonment. However, President Biden clearly stated that in case of Navalny’s death in prison, there will be “devastating consequences” for Russia.
Ukraine: Less progress on Ukraine as President Putin dismissed both the possibility that Ukraine will join NATO which he considers unacceptable. Regarding the Russian aggression in East Ukraine, he stated that it is not the business of the United States.
Analyzing the reactions from the summit between the two leaders, we feel prudence from both, which highlights the importance of the summit itself as a result. Putin said about Biden, “he's a balanced and professional man, and it's clear that he's very experienced," also that, “it seems to me that we did speak the same language", while Bidencommented, "the bottom line is, I told President Putin that we need to have some basic rules of the road that we can all abide by."
Overall, the summit did not result in a breakthrough and both leaders initially had low expectations, however, sending back their ambassadors and initiating cooperation in new areas like cybersecurity show low but clear progress in the Russian American relations toward stability. Even with fruitless talks on Russian involvement in the cyberattacks on the United States and refusal of explanation about the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, any progress is seen as a success, due to how low the relations were. Each side informed the other what are the red lines. The summit clearly represented how strategically crucial are these bilateral relations. Both sides affirmed that they don’t want another Cold War, but the reality is that the world has changed. Biden must calculate with a global China and at some point, there will be an interest to cooperate with Russia, regardless of the several obstacles presently obstructing a more cordial relationship. However, Russia can possibly use this card and profit from the tense Sino-American relation.
To sum it up, it is more than likely that the summit itself will not radically change the rhetoric of the Russian American relation, but can be a cornerstone to initiate that change.
By: Diletta Cosco and Luca Mattei
One of our members of the human rights team is currently working in a shelter for Talibè children located in the Dakar, Senegal. The article is an interview of Abdu Ndao (the name used is to protect the person’s identity), who has been responsible for the shelter. He talks about the exploitation of Talibè children in Senegal.
Could you explain to us who the Talibè children are and what do they do?
Talibè children are male students from five to eighteen years old generally, who attend Quranic schools called “Daara”, which also serve as the home for every child. The living conditions of the Talibè are quite critical; once they join the school, they are forced onto the streets to beg, and that is the only way where they are able to provide food for themselves. The earnings are daily directed to the Marabout, the Quranic teacher, who establishes a minimum amount of money (around 200-250 Sefa). If the child fails to provide the required sum, he might be subjected to abuse. The Daara and the forced begging is a source of income for the Marabout. The Talibè children come from Senegal itself and the surrounding countries such as Gambia, Mali and the Guineas. During their years as Talibè, children are rarely allowed to return to their home, mostly only for special occasions. However, some Marabouts strictly forbid the children to visit their families.
What are the reasons that lead parents to send their children to the Daaras?
There are several reasons that encourage parents to send their children to the Daaras. Firstly, the main purpose is religious education as parents are determined to make their children learn Quran perfectly. It is believed that by acquiring Islamic knowledge, the children will gain a prestigious education. Furthermore, even if parents are aware of the conditions of the Daara, they are quite convinced by the fact that it will be a great life lesson for their children and that in this way, they will learn how to become real men. Daaras are also considered prestigious schools, as many important men in Senegal were once Talibè students. The children unfortunately only gain a faction of the religious education at the Daraa as they only learn the Quran. Their future is quite limited to become a Marabout teacher mostly. At the end of their Daara period, they lack formal education.
What is your shelter doing and what is your relationship with the Marabout?
To mitigate this phenomenon, several shelters which provide relief are spread around Senegal. Among these, our centre is here to provide relief and assistance to the Talibè by offering clothes, food, a shower and some playtime and learning activities with the staff. Relationships with the Marabout is a sort of partnership/collaboration; it can be a constant process of mediation as sometimes Marabout are afraid that children who attend the centre will be indoctrinated by our beliefs. My job here is to convince them that our sole purpose is to provide what I have mentioned before. However, it is important that the Marabout explains his rules to all the staff and to me will be committed to respect them. It is a sort of compromise in order to reach our goal of assisting Talibè children. Rules such as forbidding the children to take a shower or change clothes frequently are two examples. Every relationship with the Marabout, though, can be different as some are radical while others are moderate. Some Marabouts are suspicious because they are afraid centres like ours have hidden missions. For this reason, in the past, some Marabout did not let the children take French classes at our centre, and I had to convince them that there was no hidden agenda. Part of my duty is to visit the Daaras to ensure they meet minimum conditions, such as the presence of mosquito nets. If this is not the case, I am in charge of distributing them as well.
What is the Senegalese government approach to this matter?
The government is fully aware of this phenomenon. There were few attempts to end it, but religion is powerful in Senegal, and Marabout are very influential in the Senegalese society (they are fully part of the political life and can even influence election results). Senegal signed the UN convention on the Rights of the Child, but it has been clearly violated. The government made several attempts and started campaigns named “Zero talibè dans la rue”, with the objective to end the forced begging of Talibè children. However, despite these attempts, not much has changed. The fear of political repercussions and damage to the government reputation is very strong. If the government pushes harder, they fear they will be accused of being against Islam by the Marabouts.
In the first part of this interview, ITSS Human Security team members Esther Ruiz and Arsan Sheik interview Dr. Duraid Jalili on climate change and security.
Dr. Duraid is a lecturer at King’s College Defence Studies Department and he is also the founder and co-Director of the Environmental Security Research Group. In this first part of the interview, he talks about the new security challenges driven by natural disasters and the adaptation of national security and military strategies to climate change. Stay tuned for the second part of the Podcast!
Interviewing Team: Esther Ruiz and Arsan Sheik
By: Rebecca Pedemonte
In 2018 I started a University research based on a series of interviews with individuals that had migrated from West African countries. The results showed that the fear of being persecuted based on sexual orientation is one of the many reasons why migrants decide to leave their country. In particular, one of the interviewees from Gambia reported that being considered a homosexual by the community could endanger his physical safety in his country.
This evidence raises significant questions on discrimination against individuals of the LGBTQ+ community, although the International Community rarely discusses it. How much can these discriminations against individuals belonging to the LGBTQ+ community affect the choice to migrate from their country of origin? Such stigmatization derives from prevailing social and cultural norms, impregnated with intolerance and prejudices, and also, from national laws that reflect this kind of attitudes. Therefore, it is also significant to note how widespread are the provisions that criminalise the individuals from the said community within the African territory.
According to the 2020 Report, published by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, nowadays there are still many laws of African States that criminalize homosexual or transgender people. According to the laws in Mauritania, Somalia and part of Nigeria, anyone identified as belonging to the LGBTQ+ community can be given the death penalty. In the Central African area, such as in Sierra Leone, Gambia, part of Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia, the individuals can be served with a prison sentence of a minimum of eleven years up to life imprisonment. In other eighteen states, most of which are located in the Maghreb area and in West Africa, homosexuality is sanctioned with periods of imprisonment that can vary from 1 month to eight years.
On May 23rd, in Senegal, where currently the sexual act between homosexuals is punished with five years of imprisonment, hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Dakar, demanding the legitimacy of homophobia. It has been stated that they "want to promote correct social values". This emphasizes the fact that often it is the communities themselves that perpetuate these discriminations.
However, in some countries of the continent, the State’s law does not provide regulatory provisions or sanctions against homosexuality. However, according to numerous reports from NGOs, such as Amnesty International, it has been revealed the presence of multiple realities in which homosexuality is criminalized de facto; through persecution by government authorities or, even, by members of the communities themselves. This is what happens, for example, in Egypt, where torture and illegal detention of homosexuals are widely practiced. For all other countries of the continent, no verified criminalization is foreseen, but similarly, no protection or defence is envisaged within their laws either.
At the regulatory level, the only country that recognizes protection against LGBTQ+ people is South Africa. However, there are discrepancies between what is sanctioned by law and what happens in everyday life.
Nonetheless, it has to be considered that in some areas of the continent, particularly in rural areas, the collection of data about these persecutions is highly complex. Therefore, there is no truthful information in many countries, or it is the State that does not want to collect and submit them to International Organizations. Consequently, several gray areas remain regarding the presence or absence of legislation that criminalize homosexuality within the African continent. For these reasons, it is difficult to structure a realistic mapping on the percentages of persecuted people for their sexual orientation. This detection appears even harder if we consider the percentage of people who emigrated from their country of origin out of fear of being persecuted. The data collection has been worsened by the general trend of the commissions for asylum-seekers to not publish the reasons for the recognition of international protection.
A note issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) specified that sexual orientation must be considered in the definition of “refugee,” along with gender identity. Specifically, it is a motivation that can affect the individual's well-founded fear of being persecuted. The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention did not include these factors in the original essay formulation. Due to this Note to the 1967 Protocol of the Convention, people who have experienced discrimination or violence because of their sexual orientation may require international protection.
Although it is difficult to define the exact number, UNHCR states that among the ten largest nationalities for asylum requests in 2016, eight have very harsh legislation against homosexuals and transgender people.
Furthermore, it is important to underline the plurality of discriminations that a person belonging to the LGBTQ+ community suffers from and how little is this considered in the collective imaginary, especially in asylum and governmental policies.
It may appear that the governments are reluctant in setting up centers that might help and support the LGBTQ+ community. Even in countries with less stringent laws, it is difficult to do because of the prevailing community norms. Consequently, the person who migrates because of abuses and physical, sexual or verbal discrimination is forced to undergo the same degrading treatments and get low protection throughout the migratory path and, most probably, also in its aftermath.
The Covid-19 pandemic outbreak certainly did not improve the situation and contributed to increasing the vulnerability of this community. Given the status quo that provides ground for discrimination and little protection, there is an imminent need to revisit existing laws and enforce governmental and private programs to expand protection systems on field and defend victims from abuses. Raising awareness within the communities, building and establishing suitable centers on the territory, and volunteers' training are all fundamental factors that may change these human rights violations.
By: Renata Safina and Arnaud Sobrero
In 2020, amidst the biggest pandemic the world has seen since the Spanish Flu in 1918, two ex-soviet states were battling over an area of just 4,400 km² in the mountainous region of Nagorno- Karabakh. Armenia and Azerbaijan, so close and yet so far, are two mortal enemies sharing a common DNA.
This war, at first, seemed like a faraway regional conflict between two neighboring states, away from western Europe and even further from the United States. However, a closer inspection requires us to pay a lot more attention to the conflict. Indeed, this conflict is illustrative of how the extensive use of artificial intelligence-enabled drones can be instrumental in shifting the outcome of a war. Thus, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military domain is disrupting the way we approach conventional warfare.
The use of advanced technological weapons, drones, and loitering munitions supplied by both Israel and Turkey practically won this war for Azerbaijan. In particular, AI-enabled weaponized drones with increasingly autonomous and surveillance capabilities were able to disrupt the battlefield significantly. The deployment of those drones, such as the Turkish TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), had a substantial disruptive impact on the battlefield as the Azeris forces were able to destroy 47% of the Armenian combat vehicles and 93% of its artillery.
'Harpy' and 'Harop' loitering munitions (LM) are autonomous weapon systems produced by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a state-owned aerospace and aviation manufacturer. A loitering munition or 'kamikaze drone' is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a built-in warhead tarrying around an area searching for targets. Once the target is located, the LM strikes the target detonating on impact. The significant advantage of these systems is that during loitering, the attacker can decide when and what to strike. Should the target not be found, the LM returns to the base. In addition, these systems are equipped with machine learning algorithms that can take decisions without human involvement, allowing them to process a large amount of data and decide instantly, revolutionizing the speed and accuracy of the actions.
Those developments in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence are already contributing to creating technological surrogates disrupting how we conduct warfare.
Wars fought with lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) equipped with AI are not a vision of a distant future. These weapons are being deployed presently and are a huge game changer and, those 'market disruptors' will once and for all change the way the wars are fought. Former CIA Director and retired Gen. David Petraeus claims that “drones, unmanned ships, tanks, subs, robots, computers are going to transform how we fight all campaigns. Over time, the man in the loop may be in developing the algorithm, not the operation of the unmanned system itself.”
However, military operations conducted without human involvement raise many ethical questions and debates. On one side, supporters argue that LAWS with AI generate fewer casualties due to high precision, and thanks to lack of emotions, can even eliminate war crimes. On the other side, machine learning bias in data input may create unpredictable mistakes. AI decision-making may result in flash wars and rapid escalation of conflicts with catastrophic consequences. Thus, by lowering the cost of war, LAWS might increase the likelihood of conflicts.
Furthermore, the transfer of the responsibility of decision-making entirely to the machine will drastically distance a human from an act of killing, questioning the morality and ethics of the application of AI for military purposes. Lack of international laws and regulations created a Wild West with developed countries acting as both sheriffs and outlaws. Vigorous debates are already taking place among academics and military organizations in the western world as they are trying to keep up with the increasing technological developments. The resulting discussions triggered the creation of a group of governmental experts on LAWS at the United Nations in 2016. Despite ongoing United Nations discussions, international ban or other regulations on military AI are not likely to happen in the near term. Consequently, before we can fully grasp the consequences of applying artificial intelligence in the military domain and start creating "killer robots'', a more cautious approach should be recommended to limit the deployment of AI systems to less-lethal operations such as bomb disposal, mine clearance and reconnaissance missions.
For all the potential applications of AI to the military domain, the question stays: Will it help us sleep better at night or prevent us from sleeping at all?
By: Omri Brinner, John Devine, Martina Gambacorta and Angelo Calianno.
The most significant development from the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas is the warming of relations between two rival camps in the Middle East, which is a hopeful sign of things to come. If developments such as the recent Saudi-Iranian negotiations and the seeming end of the civil war in Libya continue to characterize regional affairs, then the region might very well be on its way to rehabilitate from more than a decade of continued wars.
The two countries representing the rival camps are Egypt and Qatar. Regionally, Egypt is in league with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), while Qatar is linked with Turkey and Iran. Egyptian-Qatari relations have significantly improved since the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire and the Qatari promise of increased financial support to the Gaza Strip. Egypt and Qatar are in a unique position to bridge geopolitical gaps through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Egypt as the only Arab country that borders the Gaza Strip and therefore controls the crossings to and fro Gaza; and Qatar as the only regional country that has both the funds and well-established relations with the authorities in Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Until recently, the two countries and their camps were on a head-on course of action, best characterized by the 2017 blockade on Qatar, which focused to a large extent on Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), and not by chance. Since its inception in 1928 the MB has challenged and at times terrorized the Egyptian state, with the rivalry climaxing in 2012 when the organization won the Egyptian elections and became the ruling party. However, the old regime soon retook power through a military coup and began persecuting, jailing and executing MB members.
A notable portion of Qatar’s support to the MB has been delivered to its Palestinian branch, Hamas. As a MB affiliate, in recent years Hamas has challenged Egyptian sovereignty by building underground smuggling tunnels and connecting with Egyptian terrorists in the border area. Egypt’s fierce anti-MB policies, which include a joint Egyptian-Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, have resulted in Hamas’ dependency on Egypt for humanitarian support. Hamas is, therefore, willing to make concessions that will essentially, in light of its dire state, benefit both itself and Egypt. In other words, in coordination with Israel, Egypt decides when and what to give to the Gaza Strip.
However, Egypt has competition for both peacemaking and patronage in the Gaza Strip by one of its regional foes, Qatar. Qatar is in a distinct position as it is the only regional country that has both the funds and well-established relations with both Israel (albeit unofficial) and Hamas. Other regional countries have either relations with the two parties or funds to spare, but not both. Therefore, Qatar has two prominent roles in supporting the Gaza Strip. The first is financial. Since 2012 Qatar has transferred to Gaza around 1.5 billion USD with Israel’s approval, with Hamas directly receiving the lion’s share. Despite this fact, it is in Israel’s interest that the Gaza Strip will be politically and economically stable. Israel calculates that stability reduces the chances of a coup by more extreme local groups, such as the Islamic Jihad, and that Palestinians will want to maintain a relatively good lifestyle and low unemployment rates, as opposed to times of poverty and recurring clashes. The other Qatari role is providing Gaza with energy. With the electricity infrastructure all but functional, Hamas found in Qatar a patron for petrol - the latter being the world-leading exporter of liquefied natural gas.
So far, it seems that the shared interest of Egypt, Qatar, Israel and Hamas to stabilize the Gaza Strip has strengthened relations between Egypt and Qatar. An indication for this state of affairs took place a day after the ceasefire agreement was reached, when the exiled Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spoke from Qatar, thanking Egyptfor its role in brokering the ceasefire. It should be noted that Haniyeh could not have congratulated Egypt on Qatari soil without the authorities’ blessing. However, while Qatar has been in the driving seat with regards to financing the Gaza Strip thus far, Egypt is now challenging the former by organizing a regional donors conference. It also recently announced the allocation of 500 million USD of its own funds for the reconstruction of the strip. That said, Egypt needs to carefully calculate its financing schemes to maintain the Qatari-Egyptian cooperation in Gaza. Otherwise, it will push Qatar to either transfer more funds directly to Hamas or to stop the flow of cash altogether, leaving itself as Gaza’s sole provider.
When examining Egyptian-Qatari relations in a wider geopolitical perspective, it can be stated that each country represents its camp in terms of competition, but also cooperation and diplomacy. The improved Egyptian-Qatari relations signify improved relations between the camps. Other developments include Egyptian-Turkish talks, in which the sides discussed various disagreeable issues (such as Turkey’s favourable policies towards the MB), the apparent end of the Libyan civil war, the Saudi-Iranian negotiations and, consequently and hopefully, the beginning of the end of the Yemenite civil war, the revival of the JCPOA and the end of the blockade on Qatar.
Comparing today’s regional state of affairs to that of a year ago will show that calculated and mutually beneficial diplomacy is arguably a better ingredient for regional stability and peace than hardline and uncompromising policies.
By: Adelaide Martelli, Francesco Bruno and Shahin Modarres.
Regardless of how violent, inhuman, and detestable terrorism is, it is a social phenomenon. Hence, like other social phenomena, it is a dynamic body that undergoes changes and transforms to adapt to the constantly changing socio-political sphere in different parts of the world. After the major paradigm shift of terrorist organizations from vertical structures to horizontal ones, the third wave of terror attacks was formed based on individuals carrying out terrorist attacks. These individuals are known by the colloquial "lone wolf" and they represent a growing concern due to the complexity of detecting them.
The term "lone wolf" has opened the stage for controversy in defining it. The basis of this controversy mostly manoeuvres on either if the individual radicalized and carried out the event like the famous case of Ted Kaczynski, or he/she has radicalized as the result of an agent-based mechanism of socialization. According to Prof. Mark Hamm, the distinction that differentiates the "lone wolf" phenomenon is based on the executive phase of a terrorist attack. "lone wolf" is the individual who might have been radicalized as the result of group socialization or self-indoctrination but acts alone. Prof. Peter Neumann adds: "a lone wolf is not necessarily a member of a terrorist organization but an individual who has an affinity with them".
In this article, we will discuss two cases of "lone wolf" terrorism to show both the executive phase of "lone actor" and pre-attack radicalization. It is important to recognize that even though the final act in lone wolf terrorism is performed as a solo, it is not an individual effort that has led to that moment. Many lone actors have received logistic and material support from terrorist cells, including explosives and instructions to build devices, safe passes, and even safe homes for the post-op phase (Schuurman, 2017).
Besides the operational level in the case of Younes Tsouli, we will see the importance of "lone actor" radicalization and recruitment on online platforms. And in the case of Mohammed Bouyeri, we will discuss how the term "Lone wolf" can overstate the degree of isolation these individuals go through.
It has sparked a controversial debate on the nature of the “Lone Wolf” as an individual with a focus on both psychological and personality factors, and external in terms of environment, friendships, and family ties. This part of the paper in relation to “Lone Wolves” will be using a different theoretical approach argued by Marc Sageman in Leaderless Jihad and characterized by the development of a new environment and processes of radicalization primarily based on the Internet. The importance here is the interaction between members on online portals and forums accessible exclusively by invitation, where complete anonymized strangers interact expressing their views on their hopes for Islam. What is interesting in this case is the fact that such forums provide a community for these individuals to interact with each other “this mutual sharing makes them feel even closer to each other in a virtual process similar to the one previously described as in-group love with face-to-face interactions. This provides them with a sense of belonging to a greater community on the basis of what they have in common, Islam” (Sageman, 2008). This perspective provides an alternative view on Lone Wolf, as this article argues, it is possible to define as “Lone Wolf” someone who acts are characterized by “lone” actions, but in reality, there is a variety of social interactions which made such cases less “lonely”.
The example that will be used to shed some light on the action of a Lone Wolf is the case of Younes Tsouli, also called Terrorist 007, and the “most wanted cyber-jihadist” according to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). He began by appearing on websites such as “Islamic Terrorists” where he came across as an agitator, following that in 2004, he began to reach popularity as an expert cyber-jihadists providing not only terrorist material to online forums where he could directly radicalize youths, but he also was able to provide inside of US military bases in Iraq. More importantly, Younes was able to become a pillar for Al-Qaeda’s propaganda in Britain, despite, as the judge at his trial pointed out that he never himself came close to a firearm or committed a crime physically according to ACPO. His role alone had indirectly created a space for jihadist propaganda gaining support by the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Musab Al-Zarqawi facilitating the contacts across thousands of “lone wolves” across the globe (Jacobson, 2010). Therefore, to answer the question, are “Lone” wolves really lonely? They are not as demonstrated by the case of Younis Tsouli.
The case of Mohammed Bouyeri, the 2006 Amsterdam attacker who killed Theo Van Gogh, is peculiar to analyze lone wolves’ networks during their radicalization and plotting process. He is considered as the first European Islamic lone wolf (Zogno, 2018), and, contrarily to what is generally thought, he was not so detached from social interactions. Bouyeri was born in Holland to Moroccan parents, and reportedly both he and his family were well integrated into the Dutch Community (Nesser, 2005).
Thanks to the documents retrieved from his computer after his arrest we have information regarding his radicalization and indoctrination processes (Sageman, 2008). In 2001 he went to prison, and there he started reading the Quran, which may be suggested by other prisoners, faith became his light during this dark period (Peters, 2016). The second event that influenced him towards a stricter interpretation of Islam was the death of his sick mother, since then he appeared increasingly isolated from the larger society (Cottee, 2014).
However, the biggest turning point was in 2003 as a consequence of two major events: Firstly, Dutch authorities refused Bouyeri’s proposal to open a youth club for immigrants; secondly, he entrenched a tight relationship with the fundamentalist Imam Abou Khaled (Nesser, 2012). Bouyeri started attending the meeting held by Abou Khaled, where he learned how to conduct his life following Sharia law so that he completely changed his previous lifestyle (Peters, 2016). Not only, but he also met several like-minded people with whom he established the Dutch Islamist group called the Hofstadgroup (Adjiembaks, 2016). Except for the people inside his network, he was very isolated from the larger society and he used to spend his time writing and disseminating extremist beliefs online (Kaplan et al., 2017;De Koning, 2013). In this period, he changed his name to Abu Zubair, in memory of the homonymous Al-Qaeda commander.
The triggering event before the attack was the documentary “Submission” produced by Theo Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali in 2004, perceived by him and many other Muslims as offensive to Islam (Peters, 2016). Simultaneously, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) promoted a campaign in favor of kidnapping and decapitation, that apparently influenced Bouyeri’s attack plan (Nesser, 2012) . In fact, on the 2nd of November 2004 Mohammed Bouyeri, alias Abu Zubair, shot Theo Van Gogh eight times, tried to behead him, and then pinned on him with a knife an Open letter against Hirsi Ali (Nesser, 2012; De Koning, 2013) . Shortly after the attack, Bouyeri was arrested and sentenced to life in prison (Finseraas et al., 2011).
Both mentioned cases show an inpatient process of labeling these terrorist actors as with the term "Lone wolf". Mostly these actors have interpersonal, ideological, and operational ties to larger groups. (Gartenstein-Ross, 2017) Thinking of them as isolated individuals can develop conceptual confusion. The reason behind their solo act in some cases usually roots from a sense of secrecy and fear of being trapped into leakage behavior. A considerable number of these actors have expressed violent intention across the border of human norms, long before executing their plans. Their posts and socialization have been a clear cry for attention months and even years before the planning phase. (Gill, Horgan, and Deckert, 2020) This behavior, known as the "leakage behavior" has been a tremendous help for intelligence agencies and counter-terrorism professionals to detect them and surveil their activities. (Meloy and O'Toole, 2011) In some cases, the main reason behind acting alone has been their incapability of recruiting other members to the potential terrorist cell that they had in mind.As the result of a cost-benefit estimation, certain actors during recent years showed more tendency to cut their ties and communication from their niche in order to secure the required secrecy needed for the optimization of their plans. These actors preferred to reduce their vulnerability towards detection and infiltration by cutting ties with other members and their cells before executing their plans. (Bakker and De Graaf, 2012) Both elements of detection and infiltration have successfully neutralized many terrorist plots in advance and this has become a warning for more skill-developed actors to isolate themselves from their peers while planning a terrorist plot and later during the execution phase. This of course does not mean that all these actors were originally isolated individuals with anti-social behavior by their choice of acting alone was indeed the result of a strategic decision-making process.
This article has been rectified on June 9th, 2021. Younes Tsouli has already served his sentence.
