Lone wolf terrorism in Norway

Abstract

Anders Behring Breivik's massacre of 77 people on 22 July 2011 sheds light once again on the dangers and potential dangers posed by ‘lone wolf’ or lone operator terrorist acts. As demonstrated on 22 July, the lone wolf operational model presents a number of critical challenges for crisis management and emergency preparedness. The aim of this article is to draw attention to the phenomenon of lone wolf terrorism and to critically assess the response by Norwegian authorities to the twin terror attacks in 2011. In so doing, it will discuss the implications of lone wolf terrorism for crisis management and contingency planning, and argue that, while law enforcement plays a central role in efforts to combat lone wolf attacks, it is essential that counterterrorist approaches be based on democratic principles and respect for human rights.

Keywords:

• lone wolf terrorism
• Anders Behring Breivik
• crisis management
• contingency planning
• human rights

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Clive Walker for inspiring this research project, for helpful discussions during the research process, and for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Any mistakes that remain are, of course, mine.

Notes on contributor

Catherine Appleton is Senior Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Nottingham, UK. Before this she was Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the School of Law, University of Leeds, and Research Officer at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on ‘ultimate penalties’ and the question of how societies respond to their most serious crimes. Her first monograph, published by OUP, examined ‘Life after Life Imprisonment’ for a group of released life-sentenced offenders in England and Wales, and was awarded the 2011 British Society of Criminology Book Prize. She is currently engaged on a Leverhulme funded research project on Life Imprisonment Worldwide.

Notes

1. See http://www.domstol.no/upload/OBYR/Internett/Nyheter/Terrorsaken/toslo-2011-188627-24.pdf; http://www.domstol.no/no/Enkelt-domstol/22-7/Nyheter-om-227-saken/Breivik-convicted-to-permanent-detention/, August 24, 2012. See also BBC News ‘Anders Behring Breivik: Norway Court Finds Him Sane’, August 24, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19365616.

2. Aamer Madhan, ‘Obama: “Lone Wolf” Attack is Biggest Concern’, National Journal, August 17, 2011, http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/obama-lone-wolf-attack-is-biggest-concern-20110816.

3. ‘Lone Wolf Types Emerge as Terror Threat: ASIO’, Canberra Times, September 11, 2011, http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/lone-wolf-types-emerge-as-terror-threat-asio-20110919-1wqaz.html.

4. Europol, Annual Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (The Hague: Europol, 2012), 9, https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publications/europoltsat.pdf. See also EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator, Preventing Lone Actor Terrorism – Food for Thought (Brussels, 2012).

5. One reason for this is that terrorism has generally been understood to be a group-based activity endorsed by a wider organisation, with little room for individually planned and undertaken violence.

6. See, for example, Christopher Hewitt, Understanding Terrorism in America: From the Klan to al-Qaeda (New York: Routledge, 2003); Instituut voor Veiligheids- en Crisismanagement (COT), Lone-Wolf Terrorism (The Hague: COT, 2007); Ramon Spaaij, ‘The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism: An Assessment’, Studies in Conflict Terrorism 33 (2010): 854; Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism: Global Patterns, Motivations and Prevention (New York: Springer, 2012); Raffaello Pantucci, ‘What Have We Learned about Lone Wolves from Anders Behring Breivik?’, Perspectives on Terrorism 5, nos. 5–6 (2011): 27; Randy Borum, ‘Informing Lone Investigations’, Criminology and Public Policy 12, no. 1 (2013): 103; George Michael, Lone Wolf Terrorism and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2013); and Jeffrey D. Simon, Lone Wolf Terrorism: Understanding the Growing Threat (New York: Prometheus Books, 2013).

7. Simon, Lone Wolf Terrorism, 37–8.

8. Hewitt, Understanding Terrorism in America.

9. See, esp., Matthew Feldman, ‘Comparative Lone Wolf Terrorism: Toward a Heuristic Definition’, Democracy and Security 9 (2013): 270.

10. Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, ‘The “Lone Wolf” Disconnect’, STRATFOR: Global Intelligence, January 30, 2008, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/lone_wolf_disconnect.

11. Ibid.

12. Recent evidence submitted to the UK-based Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) by Andrew Parker, Director General of the Security Service, suggests that the rise of the internet has resulted in ‘a small rise in the number of cases we see of individuals who become radicalised, and sometimes [turn] to violent action’. ISC, ‘Evidence given by Sir Iain Lobban, Mr Andrew Parker, Sir John Sawyers’ (uncorrected transcript, 2013), 11.

13. See Spaaij, ‘The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism’; and Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism. See also COT, Lone-Wolf Terrorism.

14. Spaaij, ‘The Enigma of Lone Wolf Terrorism’, 856.

15. Raffaello Pantucci, A Typology of Lone Wolves: Preliminary Analysis of Lone Islamist Terrorists (London: International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, 2011), 19.

16. Gerry Gable and Paul Jackson, Lone Wolves: Myth or Reality? (Ilford: Searchlight Report, 2011), 7.

17. Ibid., 82.

18. Ibid.

19. For example, Breivik claimed in his manifesto to have started working on manufacturing explosives by searching the internet. Anders Breivik, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/07/24/National-Politics/Graphics/2083+-+A+European+Declaration+of+Independence.pdf.

20. Feldman, ‘Comparative Lone Wolf Terrorism’, 280.

21. See Boaz Ganor, ‘Defining Terrorism: Is One Man's Terrorist Another Man's Freedom Fighter?’, Police Practice and Research 3, no. 4 (2002): 287.

22. Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

23. See Jeffrey J. Kaplan, ‘Leaderless Resistance’, Terrorism and Political Violence 9, no. 3 (1997): 80.

24. Ibid.

25. Louis Beam, ‘Leaderless Resistance’, The Seditionist 12, (1992): 5 (first published 1983), http://www.louisbeam.com/leaderless.htm.

26. See Metzger, cited in Petter Nesser, ‘Research Note: Single Actor Terrorism – Scope, Characteristics and Explanations’, Perspectives on Terrorism 6, no. 6 (2012): 62.

27. Breivik, 2083.

28. See, for example, Matthew Goodwin, ‘“Lone wolves” such as Pavlo Lapshyn are part of a bigger threat’, Guardian, October 23, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/23/pavlo-lapshyn-extremist-bomber-lone-wolves.

29. See http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/man_jailed_for_mosque_explosions_and_murder_of_elderly_muslim_man/. Furthermore, recent statements from al-Qaeda underline the militant Islamist groups' increased strategic shift towards the practice of so-called ‘individual jihad’ or solo terrorism, encouraging individuals to execute small-scale, less technically complex attacks in Western countries without the active assistance of any larger organisation. See Beau D. Barnes, ‘Confronting the One-man Wolf Pack: Adapting Law Enforcement and Prosecution Responses to the Threat of Lone Wolf Terrorism’, Boston University Law Review 92 (2012): 1613; and Europol, TE-SAT 2012: EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (The Hague: Europol, 2012): 17.

30. Hewitt, Understanding Terrorism in America, 79.

31. Ibid., 78.

32. COT, Lone-Wolf Terrorism, 16–17.

33. Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism, 27.

34. This can, in part, be explained by the relative popularity of the leaderless resistance concept among right-wing militia and anti-abortion activists in the US. Ibid., 31.

35. Ibid., 32. Importantly, Spaaij also acknowledges the limitations of his dataset, such as the likelihood of a ‘hidden figure’ of lone wolf terrorists, particularly in historical periods and regions of the world with low media coverage. Nesser also points out that, while Spaiij's lone wolf study is an important contribution, the dataset referred to in the study almost exclusively registers successful attacks. Nesser argues that failed attacks should also be taken into consideration, given that terrorist plots often fail or are thwarted. Nesser, ‘Research Note’.

36. According to Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism, 92, the lethality rate of lone wolf terrorist attacks averages around 0.62 fatalities per incident, compared to about 1.6 deaths per attack in other terrorist attacks. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that the overall lethality of lone wolf terrorism is on the increase compared with the growing lethality of terrorism in general. Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, ‘After 9/11: Is it All Different Now?’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 2 (2005): 259.

37. Europol, TE-SAT 2012, 18.

38. V.I. Vasilenko, cited in Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism, 28. See also David Anderson, The Terrorist Acts in 2012: Report of the Independent Reviewer on the Operation of the Terrorism Act 2000 and Part I of the Terrorism Act 2006 (London: The Stationery Office, 2013), paras 2.21–2.22.

39. Edwin Bakker and Beatrice de Graaf, ‘Preventing Lone Wolf Terrorism: Some CT Approaches Addressed’, Perspective on Terrorism 5, nos. 5–6 (2003): 43.

40. Dag Wollebæk et al., ‘After Oslo and Utøya: How a High-trust Society Reacts to Terror’, Political Science and Politics 45, no. 1 (2012): 32.

41. Tom Christensen, Per Lægreid, and Lise Hellebø Rykkja, ‘After a Terrorist Attack: Challenges for Political and Administrative Leadership in Norway’, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 21, no. 3 (2013): 167.

42. According to Simon, Lone Wolf Terrorism, 49, between 1970 and 2010 there were 15 terrorist attacks in Norway, with one person killed and 13 wounded in those incidents.

43. Arjen Boin and Patrick Lagdec, ‘Preparing for the Future: Critical Challenges in Crisis Management’, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 8, no. 4 (2000): 185.

44. Arjen Boin, cited in Christensen et al., After a Terrorist Attack, 168.

45. See Bernice Lee and Felix Preston with Gemma Green, Preparing for High Impact, Low Probability Events (London: Chatham House, 2012).

46. Paul t'Hart, Uriel Rosenthal, and Alexander Kouzmin, ‘Crisis Decision Making: The Centralization Thesis Revisited’, Administration and Society 25, no. 1 (1993): 12.

47. Norges offentlige utredninger (NOU), Official Norwegian Reports, Rapport fra 22. juli-kommisjonen (Oslo: Departementenes servicesenter Informasjonsforvaltning, Government Administration Services, Information Management, 2012).

48. Christensen et al., ‘After a Terrorist Attack’, 12.

49. NOU, Rapport fra 22. Juli-kommisjonen.

50. Ibid. Before his arrest Breivik contacted the police on two occasions during his attack (recorded at 17:59 and 18:24), presenting himself and wanting to surrender, but both of his calls were cut short as a result of severe capacity problems within the emergency telephone system. Ibid.

51. Tom Christensen, Per Lægreid, and Lisa Rykkja, How to Cope with a Terrorist Attack? A Challenge for the Political and Administrative Leadership (COCOPS, 2012): 11, http://www.cocops.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/COCOPS_workingpaper_No6.pdf.

52. Ibid.

53. Helen Pidd and James Meikle, ‘Norway will Not be Intimidated by Terror Attacks, Vows Prime Minister’, Guardian, July 27, 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/27/norway-terror-attacks-prime-minister. See also Richard Orange, ‘Jens Stoltenberg Interview: Prime Minister at the Helm during Breivik Shooting’, Daily Telegraph, July 21 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/9418144/Jens-Stoltenberg-interview-prime-minister-at-the-helm-during-Breivik-shooting.html.

54. Michael Schwirtz, ‘Norway's Premier Vows to Keep an Open Society’, New York Times, July 27, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/world/europe/28norway.html?_r=0.

55. In his speech to the Congress in September 2001 President Bush's message was: ‘Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.’ Cited in BBC News, ‘Declining Use of “War on Terror”’, April 17, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6562709.stm.

56. Anne Lise Fimreite et al., ‘After Oslo and Utøya: A Shift in the Balance between Security and Liberty in Norway?’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 36 (2013): 839.

57. Wollebæk et al., ‘After Oslo and Utøya’, 35.

58. NATO, ‘22 July Commission's Report’, August 14, 2012, http://www.norway-nato.org/eng/News/22-July-Commissions-report/.

59. NOU, Rapport fra 22. Juli-kommisjonen.

60. Ibid. See also BBC News, ‘Norway Police “Could have Stopped Breivik Sooner”’, August 13, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19241327.

61. NOU, Rapport fra 22. Juli-kommisjonen.

62. See Ian MacDougall, ‘Norway PM: Attacks Response to be “More Democracy”’, July 27, 2011, http://news.yahoo.com/norway-pm-attacks-response-more-democracy-121223136.html.

63. See Michael Schwirtz, ‘Norway's Premier Manages to Keep an Open Society’, New York Times, July 27, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/world/europe/28norway.html?_r=0.

64. NOU, Rapport fra 22. Juli-kommisjonen.

65. Ibid.

66. See Christensen et al., How to Cope with a Terrorist Attack?.

67. NOU, Rapport fra 22. Juli-kommisjonen.

68. Christensen et al., How to Cope with a Terrorist Attack?, 20.

69. Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism.

70. NOU, Rapport fra 22. Juli-kommisjonen.

71. Ibid.

72. See Christensen et al., How to Cope with a Terrorist Attack?.

73. See Fimreite et al., ‘After Oslo and Utøya’, 851.

74. Prop.131 L (2012–2013) Proposisjon til Stortinget (forslag til lovvedtak) 2005 mv. (forberedelse av terror m.m.). These proposals were approved by the Norwegian Parliament in June 2013. See Lovvedtak 104 (2012–1013) vedtak til lov om endringer i straffeloven 1902 og straffeloven 2005 mv. (forberedelse av terror m.m.). However, at the time of writing, they are yet to be implemented. The proposal to increase the maximum sentence from 21 to 30 years for acts of terror was, in fact, passed by the Norwegian parliament on 20 May 2005. Prop. 131 L (2012–2013) suggests that the implementation of a 30-year tariff for the most serious crimes, including acts of terror, should be pushed forward.

75. See Royal Ministry of Finance, The National Budget 2012: A Summary (Oslo, 2012), http://www.statsbudsjettet.no/Upload/Statsbudsjett_2012/dokumenter/pdf/nb_summary.pdf.

76. See Per Lægrid and Lisa H. Rykkja, Coordination Practice: Coordinating for Internal Security and Safety in Norway (COCOPS, 2013), http://www.cocops.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Norway_CGov_Internal-Security.pdf; and Christensen et al., How to Cope with a Terrorist Attack?.

77. Adam Geller and Ian MacDougall, ‘Massacre Changes Norway's Thinking on Personal Liberty’, Washington Times, August 7, 2011, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/7/massacre-changes-norways-thinking-on-personal-libe/?page=all.

78. Fred Burton, ‘The Challenge of the Lone Wolf’, Security Weekly, May 30, 2007, http://www.stratfor.com/challenge_lone_wolf.

79. Breivik was clearly aware of this aspect of lone terrorist acts. In his manifesto he warned other potential terrorists that their chances of being apprehended would increase by 100% for every other person they involved in their plans. He stated: ‘Don't trust anyone unless you absolutely need to (which should never be the case). Do absolutely everything yourself’. Breivik, 2083, 844.

80. See Bakker and de Graaf, ‘Preventing Lone Wolf Terrorism’.

81. Edwin Bakker and Beatrice de Graaf, ‘Lone Wolves: How to Prevent this Phenomenon?’, (The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2010): 5, http://www.icct.nl/download/file/ICCT-Bakker-deGraaf-EM-Paper-Lone-Wolves.pdf.

82. Europol, Annual Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (The Hague: Europol, 2011), 15.

83. Bakker and de Graaf, ‘Preventing Lone Wolf Terrorism’, 46.

84. As Greenwald states, ‘Over the last decade, virtually every terrorist plot aimed at the US – whether successful or failed – has provoked greater security and surveillance measures’. Glenn Greenwald, ‘An Un-American response to the Oslo Attack’, July 28, 2011, http://www.salon.com/2011/07/28/norway_4/print.

85. See Gus Martin, Understanding Terrorism (London: Sage Publications, 2003).

86. Christensen et al., How to Cope with a Terrorist Attack?.

87. Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism, 101.

88. Lucia Zedner, ‘Too Much Security?’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law 31 (2003):163.

89. Alex Shone, ‘Countering Lone Wolf Terrorism: Sustaining the CONTEST Vision’, May 17, 2010, http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/stories.asp?id=1582.

90. Breivik, for example, claims to have spent ‘a total of nine years’, planning his attacks. Breivik, 2083, 8.

91. Shone, ‘Countering Lone Wolf Terrorism’.

92. Breivik's manifesto revealed that he felt vulnerable to detection before his attacks. For instance, he created an extensive cover story that included renting a farm in order to explain his purchase of a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertiliser. Breivik, 2083.

93. Shone, ‘Countering Lone Wolf Terrorism’.

94. Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism.

95. See Gabriel Weimann, ‘Lone Wolves in Cyberspace’, Journal of Terrorism Research, 3, no. 2 (2012): 75.

96. Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism.

97. Shone, ‘Countering Lone Wolf Terrorism’.

98. Paul K. Davis and Kim Cragin, Social Science for Counter Terrorism: Putting the Pieces Together (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009).

99. Froukje Demant et al., cited in Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism, 90.

100. See Noémie Bouhana and Per-Olof Wikström, Al Qa'ida Influenced Radicalisation, Occasional Paper 97 (London: Home Office, 2011); and Tony Munton et al., Understanding Vulnerability and Resistance in Individuals to the Influence of Al Qa'ida Violent Extremism, Occasional Paper 100 (London: Home Office, 2011).

101. See, for example, Stephen Flynn, The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (New York: Random House, 2007); and Yossi Sheffi, The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage (Cambridge, MA: 2007).

102. Department of Homeland Security, National Response Plan, cited by Brian A. Jackson, Marrying Prevention and Resiliency, Occasional Paper (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008), 3.

103. Greenwald, ‘An Un-American Response to the Oslo Attack’.

104. ‘Resilient and peaceful Norwegians won't allow attack to change their way of life’, The Mirror, July 24, 2011, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/resilient-and-peaceful-norwegians-wont-allow-143643.

105. Since the attacks Stoltenberg and members of Norway's royal family have underlined the country's openness by making public appearances with little visible security.

106. Frank Furedi, ‘Who's Afraid of the Big Bad “Lone Wolf”?’, February 22, 2012, http://frankfuredi.com/index.php/site/article/537/.