WHAT IS THE RATIONALITY BEHIND THE LONEWOLF SUICIDE ATTACKS?
Introduction
In recent years there has been a notable increase in what we could call “lone wolf attacks”. While this does not necessarily mean that the individual acts alone, it mainly means that an external group does not support his acts: namely Al Qaeda, or, perhaps more relevantly, one of the fastest growing Jihadist groups, Daesh.
What should be important is to understand the rationale according to which a person is ready to commit suicide in the name of Allah. During the first waves of suicide bombings, the terrorist groups economically compensated the families of the martyrs. However, lacking a “sponsoring” group, there are still people who follow a particular systematic process toward radicalisation that is likely to result in deadly consequences.
The Tsarneav brothers in Boston, the Laghriss twins in Morocco, Mohammed Game in Italy and the Madrid bombers are all examples of how radicalisation may occur primarily following a media occurrence which is followed by a social interaction. Their martyrdom was an effort to support the global Jihad movement, but in practical terms, in absence of an organised group to support them, what is the rationality behind lone wolf martyrdom? The study cases will be analysed through different theoretical approaches: Gurr’s “Relative Deprivation” theory, Weber’s Theories on the Rational Choices Approach and Rational Choice Theory as well as Durkheim’s Studies on Suicide to find out that which may lead a person to strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up in a crowded area.
Chapter 1- Lone Wolf Terrorists
1.1Who is who
Marc Sageman explained very carefully, in “Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century”, what was happening in global Jihadi groups: a heavier reliance on people de-attached from particular groups, especially the shahid,[1], the suicide bomber. Therefore redirecting all the efforts to radicalisation on propaganda material. As Lorenzo Vidino[2] also stated, in an attempt to emphasise the bottom-top recruitment approach. A recruitment, which often does not even officialy occur,is done by the material provided by a terror organisation as the sole mean to radicalise and bring someone to become a shahid.
A wave of Islamist-fuelled attacks has shocked Europe in the last couple of years, the phenomenon is even stranger when we look at the motives that trigger them. According to Burton and Steward, a lone wolf terrorist is “a person who acts on his or her own without orders from — or even connections to — an organisation”[3]. However, this definition might be too narrow to classify the complex reality of such a term. A more detailed picture comes from Pantucci[4], who claims that the phenomenon can be classified into four categories: loner, lone wolf, lone wolf pack and lone wolf attacker.[5]
In this analysis, I will take into consideration only the first two types of lone wolf terrorists: the loner and the lone wolf. In fact, the last two cases do not necessarily help us explain what motivates non-incentivized martyrdom, as they both imply a certain degree of involvement within a terrorist group.[6]
While the first two clearly imply a superficial and, mostly[7], passive contact with an existing terrorist group, apart from receiving instructions from forums, YouTube videos, propaganda material and such, the individual is -or are- left alone in the planning and overall organisation of the attacks.
Examples of these individuals may include Mohamed Game in Milan or the Tsarnev brothers in Boston. Their stories will be analysed at the end of this paper. I will now proceed to explore what could have been the theoretical frameworks that pushed them into committing such attacks. Attacks that are not incentivised by an economic support or by a solid logistical assistance from a bigger terrorist group.
1.2 Why they do it
In order to have a full understanding of why a person is ready to sacrifice his life in the name of an ideology, it is important to clarify that these kind of “suicides” are not, as Robert Pape states, linkable to the ordinary day-to-day suicides whereas an individual seeks death as an escape from emotional pain.[8] Even more importantly it would be superficial, or even inadequate, to place the motive of such acts simply as “ideologically-driven” or in a struggle to “change the world” or even to simply assume that the terrorists are just “mentally unstable”.
Of course, in some cases, these may concepts apply, however they might not explain why they commit suicide. As research shows, the ordinary suicide rate (which does not involve an attack or killing of other people) is the lowest in Muslim communities or societies[9]. What follows are the theoretical tools that will be applied to our case studies, these include sociological and psychological theories that might explain how a lone wolf suicide attack is possible without an incentives from a third party.
1.2.1 Weber, Durkheim, Gurr: An Account Of Grievance and Motives to Suicide Bombings
The European Commission group of experts on violent radicalisation in 2008 has given guidelines in profiling the average suicide bomber. The study concluded that the reason why a person would be ready, or have the rationale, to commit a suicide bombing was due to:“historical antecedents of political violence, excessive repression by state authorities in the recent past and profound social changes (in Europe or in the country of origin) may, under certain conditions, contribute to a polarized social climate in which confrontation rather than conflict resolution becomes the preferred option. Yet personal experiences, kinship and bonds of friendship, as well as group dynamics are critical in triggering the actual process of radicalisation escalating to engagement in acts of terrorism against civilians.”[10]
This would theoretically mean that radicalisation typically occurs in presence of the following factors: social alienation, sympathy for peoples with a shared background (ethnicity, religion, and language,) and economic grievance, etc. While these are possible motivations that may push a person to embrace radical views on the society he lives in, they are not enough in explaining why they would embrace an armed solution to the situation. A process, which takes months to complete, to form a mentality, or a grievance, that could be disrupted or otherwise ameliorated at many point , occurs without any external support or pressure.
Given the vulnerability of the individual exposed to radical ideas[11], they must follow a certain rationale: they should give a motive to their acts, to structure it carefully beforehand in order to acquire the necessary material and logistics. In “Why Men Rebel”[12], Ted Gurr highlighted how, in certain circumstances, a man is capable of embracing radical ideas and, eventually, embrace violence as a mean to solve a perceived injustice. The discrepancy between the individual’s desires, or expectations, and reality increases the chance of relative deprivation, which, in the case of the aforementioned lone pack, could take the shape of collective violence.
In addition, according to Runciman[13], committing suicide does not represent a good solution to a perceived injustice[14]. Contemporarily, many Shahids in the west who take up arms and commit suicide bombings do so to avenge the death of their fellow Muslims. Emile Durkheim’s “Study on Suicide” and Max Weber’s studies on rationality could add up the necessary instruments we will need to explore the case studies.
Weber’s Substantive Rationality[15] goes in an opposite direction from what he called Formal Rationality. The former, implies a conviction that moral values cannot be demonstrated by science[16]. However, the most interesting part is that the cases that we are going to study have had a very late approach to substantive rationality[17].
On his work “Suicide”, Emile Durkheim highlighted some of the most prominent characteristics of different types of suicide. What is most interesting in understanding the phenomenon of suicide, is that one’s will to terminate his life is linked to an imitation phenomenon, to which individuals adapt under certain circumstances[18].
For instance, if suicide is forbidden by Islam, and considering that Islam does not have a central authority, it might be credible the fact that if an Islamic scholar, from a certain school of thought, pronounces a fatwa granting paradise to those who kill themselves during Jihad, this behaviour is likely to seem logical to the most vulnerable individuals.
Emil Durkheim’s types of suicide are the following: anomic, whereas the individual is completely de-attached from the community he lives in and which comes after a “shock” period[19]. Egoistic suicide is due to the individualization of society, in which the individual feels alienated, or scarcely integrated, in the mainstream culture. Meanwhile, altruistic suicide is the result of pressures coming from the society itself through a complex and long lasting mechanism of traditions, pressures and superstitions.
Another components that will deepen the understanding of the phenomenon is the “rational choice theory” according to which, the individuals, tend to maximise the total utility of an action[20]. A theory that is being reconstructed as it does no longer provide a plausible explanation to certain events.
In this case, suicide bombing. It does not represent a wise choice as it does not lead to a direct, concrete and certain outcome –such as the resolution of a grievance- and the shahid does not even contemplate the chance of “free riding”, as termed by Olson[21], to let someone else take such a drastic decision.
On a spiritual level, there is no need for a Muslim to blow himself up to access paradise[22], and experiences of previous Shahids in the West did not have success in making the foreign armed forces to pull out from the Middle East nor did it stop Muslims from dying in war-torn areas. Altruistic suicide, as described by Durkheim, that belonging to a substantive rationality, as expressed by Weber, and the choice to free ride, still do not help us to understand comprehensively the phenomenon.
In considering the phenomenon of Islamism, lone wolf suicide bombers, especially in the west, these theoretical frameworks do not provide direct explanations. Yet, they are necessary to debunk few myths: economic grievance is not the main reason for which an individual embraces radical views and, ultimately, violence. The aforementioned theoretical framework will help us to interpret the history of the case studies and to evaluate how they applied and how the past influenced their rational choices.
Chapter 2 Case Studies
2.1 Mohammed Game
On the 12th of October 2009, Mohammed Game, a Libyan man who moved to Milan almost ten years earlier, attempted to blow himself up outside the barracks of “Santa Barbara.”[23] The attack failed badly injuring himself and wounding two soldiers nearby.
A person who had little experience dealing with explosives clearly carried out the attack, as it is believed that the bomb, blew up before it was intended to due to poor maintenance[24]. There were no reason to suspect Game regarding any involvement in the Global Jihad. The Italian security authorities in fact did not know him[25], nor has he always been a strong believer or a strict faithful Muslim. There seems to be no rationality in his doings.
However, the truth is deeper than what it seems: Game emigrated to Italy where he managed to start a successful business, unfortunately it later failed and he had to resort into low-salary illegal occupations. His brother mentions how his heart attack in 2008 changed his views drastically: he became a strict observant of Islam and a regular visitor of Viale Jenner –the street where the main Islamic centre of Milan is, which was accused of being “the main Al Qaeda base in Europe”[26][27]. He then started to scold his brother for not being a good Muslim and admitted to his seventeen-year-old nephew his will to bomb a McDonald’s in order to “gain a free access to paradise”.[28]
His approaching to religion came after multiple life impediments: economic grievance, cultural alienation and overall feelings of resentments toward the Italian political class. The breakthrough for his actions was a protest held by the former deputy Daniela Santanchè in Milan, where she rallied against the burqa and the treatment of women in Muslim societies on the 20th of September 2009. Since that moment, his internet research passed from being purely theoretical to being operational.[29]
His formation as a jihadist happened entirely through the internet and with the few contacts he established in the Islamic centre of Viale Jenner in Milan[30]. Despite these links, the overall management of the operation was carried out by Game himself with a little logistical assistance by two North Africans named Mohammed Israfael and Abdel Kol[31].
As shown by the story of Mohammed Game, we have some factors that brought him to approach a more religious life style: economic grievance, depression, health conditions, feeling of alienation -in the terms that he did not feel part of the community- and a general animosity toward the Italian military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq[32]
On his personal timeline, there are at least three key moments: first of all the failure of his business, his heart condition and third of all Mrs Santanchè’s rally. After the first event, he started approaching a more religious and, particularly, conservative lifestyle. After the second event, he was a firm believer that something had to change. After the third event, he decided that it was time for him to do something to engage, in what Durkheim would call, an altruistic suicide and to become a shahid.
2.2 The Boston bombers: The Tsarnaev brothers
The Tsarnaev family, after requesting political asylum in the United States, successfully managed to move to Boston, Massachusetts. Tamerlan, the older Tsaranev brother, is recorded to have had memories of the war in Chechnya, this could have had an impact in his ability to build up a new life in the United States.
Tamerlan was never a devoted believer, although his mom, a more conservative person, talked him out of smoking and drinking habits to a more pious way of life[33]. Once Tamerlan approached the religion, he then befriended with Misha, a Muslim convert, who got him closer to a Salafist view of Islam[34] and to a more political approach to religion. Tamerlan, at that point, was a completely different person: he started dressing as a Muslim, he did away with all his habits and started accusing his own relatives of being infidels[35].
As the radicalisation process slowly went on, he travelled to Dagestan. Allegedly to renew his Russian passport, as his father would later report[36]. According to Speckhard, Tamerlan attempted to establish a link with the local Islamist groups in Dagestan through his friend, William Plotnikov, where he hoped to contribute and to fight with them. However, he quickly returned to the States after his friend was killed along with the group of Mujahidin by the Russian forces.[37]
Tamerlan, once back in the US, quickly realised that he had to turn operational and started planning an attack on the U.S. soil with the help of his brother, Dzhokhar.
Dzhokhar was not as religious as Tamerlan was, he started studying at college but he was not a productive student. After their parents divorced, the two remained alone, leaving Dzhokhar vulnerable and exposed to Tamerlan’s messages.
The two started planning an attack, they started to watch and read propaganda material such as the al Qaeda’s magazine “Inspire”. The attack took place on the 15th of April 2013, leaving 3 people dead and hundreds wounded.
Similarities with the Mohamed Game’s case and the Boston bombers are several. Tamerlan seemed the one who was affected the most by his family moving to the U.S. His father, Anzor Tsarnaev, could not practice law and made a living out of temporary jobs. Meanwhile his mother, Zubeidat, had to resort to poorly paid jobs. Apart from economic grievance, Tamerlan did not succeed in boxing, although he had the talent, because of the ruling system that allowed only U.S. citizens to take part of the national competitions.
Tamerlan then applied for the Community College, from which he would eventually drop out quickly because he did not succeed in his studies. In 2010, he married a Christian woman who would later convert to Islam, the two had a child. However, Tamerlan could not manage to have a well-paid or stable job therefore the wife had to work to maintain the family.
Another episode that is said to have had repercussions on Tamerlan, was the murder of one of his friend: Brendan Mess. At this point, Tamerlan, approached religion under the supervision of his mother. He and his brother were left alone with their mother when their parents divorced and the father returned to Dagestan. [38]
As aforementioned, this is when the radicalisation path materialised: the substantive rationality, made him soon realise that the world he was living in and his belief did not match, he had a feeling of alienation which chased him ever since he moved to the United States. A feeling of “deprivation” that was not merely economic: Tamerlan did not manage to succeed in many things in his life, from boxing to his personal life, and approaching Islam could have provided new significance to his existence.
Tamerlan’s brother, Dzhokhar, followed him due to a series of occurrences. Once their parents divorced and their two sisters moved elsewhere, the two remained alone with their mother. Dzhokhar, who was a lazy student, spending much of his time drinking and smoking pot[39], was just a vulnerable prey to radicalisation.
Additionally, he had great respect toward his older brother, who eventually became the only person he could rely upon. Providing his life with answers based on religion and the idea of a battle against the U.S., blamed of murdering Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Despite Tamerlan being involved temporarily with the jihadist in Dagestan, the brothers did not belong to any group[40], they of course received instructions on how to build a bomb from al Qaeda’s “Inspire” magazine[41] and from the web messages of Anwar al-Awlaki and Abu Musab al-Suri, the ma?tres à penser of leaderless jihad[42].
The two, indeed, composed a self-structured cell which was de attached from any chain of command. They did not receive orders as they only passively learnt the instructions on how to build a home-made explosive device and, additionally, they were bombarded with radical messages and views. The only way they felt they could stop the U.S. from continuing its wars was, apparently, to blow themselves up during the Boston marathon.
Chapter 3 Similarities Between The Two Case Studies
Image (a)
As Image (a) shows[43] (A hereafter), the similarities between the Boston bombers and Mohammed Game are many. In planning A, I have done the following things: firstly, I looked into their past, and looked carefully into the relationship between the individuals and their families; after that, I moved into understanding what was their lifestyle before committing the attack. In both cases, we saw regular people carrying on a regular life with its highs and lows.
However, as described by A, I noticed that at some point of their life there was some happening that made them realize that the life style they were carrying on – a lifestyle in a different culture and country- was no longer bearable.
The first breakthrough experience for Mohammed Game was the failure of his business. Game was not known by the authorities for being a radicalised man or a particularly devoted religious one. His family also claimed that Game was not dedicating much of his time to religion. However, after the failure of his business, he started a process of rapprochement to religion that ultimately led him to become a fervent habitué of Viale Jenner, where he would eventually meet people who already embraced radical views.
For Tamerlan instead, the first breakthrough experience was the alienating life in the U.S. The fact that he did not have many friends and that he felt like he was not mixing in communally. Here, again, Tamerlan’s mother proposed him to embrace religion for a quest of significance, thus prohibiting him to smoke and drink, which ultimately pushed him further away from people of his generation in the U.S. even though the religion gave him a new identity and an answer to his malaise.
In both cases Weber’s substantive rationality gives us a partial explanation to the phenomenon: the individuals started to act according to a value-rational process whereas their reality started to be circumscribed around a determined area of their outlook, selecting and measuring the empirical events.[44]
In A, we can determine that between “first breakthrough event” and “second breakthrough event” the individuals start to search radical materials, mainly through their computers, in a quest of significance and evaluation of reality. In both cases, the individuals approached the ideals of Musab al Suri[45] [46], who urged anyone to carry on a violent jihad on their own, without the need of a structural organization, which could have been detected and, eventually, dismantled by the authorities.
However, we are still on the first stage of A, where we explained how the individuals embrace religion as a vehicle for their ends. I sought to explain how the individuals radicalize both by approaching religion and watching propaganda material, how it all mixed with a substantive rationality approach and an overall feeling of malaise in society
For Tamerlan, the “second breakthrough event” was the overall realization that he had failed in many things: he had to quit boxing because he could not compete in the national championships; he failed at his studying and could not find a job and to provide for his wife and child’s livings. Game was on the same line, while he was still struggling with finding a way to make a living for his wife and four children, he had an heart attack in 2008 that, according to his brother, radically changed his lifestyle. The heart attack brought Game to be more extremist and openly in favour of terror groups such as al Qaeda.
After the second breakthrough experience, the individuals started realizing that they could play a significant difference, they sought to change what was happening in the countries they were living in. Under the behavioral spectrum, they started to scold their own family members for not being religious enough (see for example point 2.1), the religion, at that point, became the only lens through which they could analyze reality.
The individuals were all dissatisfied with the local and foreign policies of the two countries, especially regarding the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sought to put a stop to it. They realized that Muslims were suffering worldwide and actions had to be taken in order to stop that from happening, Durkheim’s altruistic suicide is starting to make its way through their minds.
The radicalization process (indicated by the red line in A) is a process that keeps carrying on from the first breakthrough event all the way to the actual attacks, emphasizing its spiral effect from which the individual rarely can come back. Especially after the third breakthrough event, the individual is obliged firstly toward his community and, secondly, toward his belief to take concrete actions.
In the case of Tamerlan, the killing of his jihadist group in Dagestan and his friend, Plotnikov, was pivotal in making him realize that Dagestan was not his place and that, once his group was gone, he had no reason to stay there. He had to continue the struggle on American soil. Here the Tsarnaev brothers started to accurately pick the objective of their attacks, they downloaded copies of the Inspire magazine and instructions on how to build a home-made bomb.
On a similar line, Mohammed Game, after mobbing the rally by former deputy Daniela Santanché’s anti-Islam rally in Milan[47], he decided to do something and started planning the attack with the aid of his friends, at the mosque, Mohammed Israfael and Abdel Kol who provided the logistical base and deposit for the chemical components that were used for the bomb.
The two martyrdoms were intended to be an altruistic suicide, to sacrifice one’s own life to end a perceived misdeeds, to feel part of that community and to take on its struggles, an embrace that was caused by a rough past and encouraged by the nonsensical Neo-Jihad’s strategies by Musab al-Suri.
In Islam, in fact, suicide is severely prohibited with hell as a punishment(as in all of the monotheistic religions), however, the ability of some Islamic scholars to deceive young muslims due to the fragmentation of Islam itself, is impressive.
Through a fatwa, the scholar might state, as al-Suri and al-Awlaki already did, that dying for Islam and killing infidels during the attack could grant the terrorists access to paradise. If this concept is filtered through the lenses of substantial rationality and altruistic suicide, topped with a strong path toward radicalization, the mix will results to be the propellant for incidents and violent acts.
Many prominent Islamic scholars claimed that the acts carried out by the Tsarnaev brothers will not grant them access to paradise. Contrarily, Inspire magazine dedicated to Tamerlan a whole page depicting him as a hero and a martyr[48]. This shows the confusion in the midst of the Ummah[49].
They carried on their suicide attacks in an attempt of fulfilling what Durkheim called altruistic suicide, but, as their past suggests, it could just be the result of anomic suicides. In fact, although the rational choice theory does not seem to explain properly event that we generally perceive as irrational. Durkheim suggested that anomic suicide was the result of a “shock” period, let it be positive or negative, that has brought the individual to change his lifestyle and behaviour toward the society and even toward some of the family members. In A we saw how that brought up to a spiral that ultimately caused the bombings.
In opposition to what Pape’s wrote on his “Dying To Win: Why Suicide Terrorists Do It”[50], we are witnessing a shift in suicide bombings strategy. In his examples, he portrays members of terrorist organisation carrying out attacks ordered by the leadership after a careful training and choice of the designated shahid. In this case altruistic suicide is a sound definition, as it assures the martyrs that they are actually carrying out the attack for their people and the interests of their community. But, he continues, that is true for the team suicide attacks.
In our case studies, we have brought up people who live in a different social context, with a number of benefit that would not be accessible in a war-torn country. How could they be sure that their attacks would have benefitted the ummah? The attacks work on the process aforementioned with a great incentivisation given out by the neo-jihad strategy, which makes much easier for terror groups to downplay the number of their members and to create a liquid underground subculture that could rely on vulnerable individuals. Giving those individuals significance and something for which they could even be able to sacrifice their lives.
As Speckhard wrote[51], in a non-conflict zone, in which the lone wolf phenomenon seems to be having a great hype at the time of writing, individuals tend to feel alienated and marginalised with frustrated aspirations. It is in this case that al Suri, al Awlaki, and other fundamentalists’ messages[52] go through and hit the heart and the head at its most vulnerable spot.
[1] Shahid is an arabic word meaning “witness of faith”. The shahid has a great relevance to the Islamic culture as someone who gives in everything to demonstrate the strength of his faith. In recent years, the term has been associated to suicide bombers, venerated as heroes and martyrs in the context of terror groups such as Al-Qaida. Also worth noticing how Al Qaida used to train for the shahid only the most motivated people, whose faith was proven in several occasions, not anyone could be a shahid. The Al-Qaeda’s shahids were mostly trained in the Jalalabad training camps. However, these trainings have become obsolete, as this paper tries to demonstrate, for the lack of organizational structure and incentives behind the suicide bombing.
[2]Vidino, L. (2014), “Il Jihadismo Autoctono in Italia: Nascita, Sviluppo e Dinamiche di Radicalizzazione”, ISPI Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale. P.28
[3] TTSLR, 2007
[4] Pantucci, R. (2011). “Typology of Lone Wolves: Preliminary Analysis of Lone Islamist Terrorists,” Developments in Radicalisation and Political Violence. March
[5]Weimann, G. (2012). “Lone Wolves in Cyberspace” JTR Volume 3, Issue 2 - Autumn 2012 pg.78
[6] Ibid.
[7] In the case of the Tsarnev brothers, the older brother, Tamerlan, has travelled to Dagestan for six months where he allegedly received a basic military training. However, as I will explain later, he did not have an operation base there nor was he in an organizational hierarchy.
[8] Pape, R. (2006). “Dying to Win: Why Suicide Terrorists Do It”, Gibson Square London pg. 172
[9] Shah, A., et al. (2010). “The relationship between suicide and Islam: a cross-national study”, West London Mental Health NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom.
[10] European Commission’s expert group on violent radicalisation “Radicalisation Processes Leading to Acts of Terrorism”. 15 May 2008. P.18
[11] In the paper, “radical ideas” is used to depict a situation whereas the individual does not feel part of a said society/culture. It is often the case that, individuals with radical ideas, do not ever take up on arms.
[12] Gurr, T.R. (1970), “Why Men Rebel”. Princeton Unviersity Press. P.28
[13] Runciman W.G., (1966), “Relative Deprivation and Social Justice: a Study Attitudes to Social Inequality in Twentieth-Century England, University of California Press.
[14]In his book, Runciman depicted the situation of someone trying to achieve, or to have something he perceived he could not have. In this situation, the individual would notice that other people were getting what he could not have, the frustration that derives from this inevitably brings the individual to hate the society/context he lives in. Of course, this model must be applied from case to case and it does not represent a one-fits-all’s approach.
[15] Weber, in his studyings, has found four types of rationality: practical, theoretical, substantive and formal. In this paper, the concept that adapt the most to our case studies will be the “substantive rationality” which is very much connected to the concept of “radical perspectivism” relying on the “demons” of each individual which he tries to confront with every day.
[16] Kalberg, S. (2010). “Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processesin History”. The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 85, No. 5 (Mar., 1980), pp. 1157
[17] Mohammed Game and the Tsarnaev brothers, have all approached religious radical views few months before committing the attacks.
[18] Durkheim, E. (1897). “Il Suicidio”, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, Classici Moderni. Pg. 252
[19] In Durkheim’s work, anomic suicide occurs both in situation of economic prosperity and impoverishment this is mainly due to the expectancies that the society has on the individual. In many cases, the individual feels frustrated as he does not fulfil these expectancies.
[20] Herrnstein, R. J. (1990). “Rational Choice Theory: Necessary but Not Sufficient”. Science Watch, Harvard University. the American Psychological Association, Vol. 45, No. 3 pg. 356
[21] Olson Jr, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schachter, S., & Singer, J.E. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69, 379–399
[22] The Jihad, one of the five pillar of Islam, does not require the believer to kill himself in the name of the religion. The Jihad can be fulfilled in many ways, such as: spreading the word of Allah or just by being pious and faithful.
[23] Curiously enough, Santa Barbara is, according to Catholicism, the protector against violent death, lightenings and… explosives! In fact, in the Italian armed forces, is not uncommon to place a votive image of the Saint at protection of the ammunition and explosives’ deposits.
[24] Vidino, L. (2014), “Il Jihadismo Autoctono in Italia: Nascita, Sviluppo e Dinamiche di Radicalizzazione”, ISPI Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale. Pg.44
[25] Ibid.
[26] David S. Hilzenrath e John Mintz, “More Assets on Hold in Anti-Terror Effort; 39 Parties Added to List of Al Qaeda Supporters”, Washington Post, 13 October 2001.
[27] Viale Jenner also ordered the first ever car bomb suicide attack in Europe (see Vidino, L. (2014), “Il Jihadismo Autoctono in Italia: Nascita, Sviluppo e Dinamiche di Radicalizzazione”, ISPI Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale. Pg.32)
[28] Vidino, L. (2014), “Il Jihadismo Autoctono in Italia: Nascita, Sviluppo e Dinamiche di Radicalizzazione”, ISPI Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale. Pg.44
[29] Ibid. pg. 46
[30] Mohammed Game, according to Vidino, had sporadic contact with a couple of North Africans with whom he used to pray together and that might have had some minor role in organising the attack. Despite this, we can still consider Game and his little group to be a lone wolves team as, according to an interview between Vidino and a security officer from the ministry of interior, they did not have any contacts or links with an organised group.
[31] Vidino, L. (2014), “Il Jihadismo Autoctono in Italia: Nascita, Sviluppo e Dinamiche di Radicalizzazione”, ISPI Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale pg. 47
[32] It is reported that Game, while being medically assisted, claimed that “the Italians must stop killing innocent Afghans” and that he “just wanted to approach the barracks and talk to the soldiers to convince them to leave Afghanistan and Iraq”. (see Lorenzo Vidino “Il Jihadismo Autoctono in Italia: Nascita, Sviluppo e Dinamiche di Radicalizzazione” pg.44 and 46)
[33] Speckhard, A. (2013). “ The Boston Marathon Bombers: the Lethal Cocktail that Turned Troubled Youth to Terrorism”. Perspectives on Terrorism, Volume 7, Issue 3 pg. 70
[34] Murphy, K., Tanfani, J., & Loiko, S. L. “The Tsarnaev brothers' troubled trail to Boston”. Los angeles Times.
[35] CNN, “Timeline: A look at Tamerlan Tsarnaev's past” April 22, 2013
[36] Speckhard, A. (2013). “ The Boston Marathon Bombers: the Lethal Cocktail that Turned Troubled Youth to Terrorism”. Perspectives on Terrorism, Volume 7, Issue 3 pg.73
[37] Ibid. pg.74
[38] For a full account of Tamerlan’s life see: A.A. (2013) “Current and Emerging Threats of Homegrown Terrorism: The Case of the Boston Bombings.” Perspective on Terrorism, Volume 7, Issue 3 pg. 46-47
[39] Ibidem. (pg. 47)
[40] A.A. (2013) “Current and Emerging Threats of Homegrown Terrorism: The Case of the Boston Bombings.” Perspective on Terrorism, Volume 7, Issue 3 pg 44
[41] Ibid. pg. 54
[42] Sageman, M. (2008). “Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century”, University of Pennsylvania Press. Pg. 144
[43] Note that the image is purely intended to analyse and give explanations to lone wolf suicide bombing and not the process of radicalization itself. The image is the representation of the empirical data I have come across.
[44] Kalkberg, S. (1980). “Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History” The American Journal of Sociology, Vol.85, No.5 pg. 1167
[45] The Conversation “Boston bombings: were the Tsarnaev brothers driven by motives other than the Chechen conflict?” April 22, 2013
[46] Corriere della Sera “Attentato alla caserma: Mohamed Game combatteva “una jihad personale””, 4th of October 2010
[47] Corriere della Sera, “Game in coma, slitta interrogatorio e intanto spunta una foto al Ciak”, 14th of October 2009
[48] A.A. (2013) “Current and Emerging Threats of Homegrown Terrorism: The Case of the Boston Bombings.” Perspective on Terrorism, Volume 7, Issue 3 pg. 75
[49] Islamic world/society
[50] Pape, R. (2006). “Dying to Win: Why Suicide Terrorists Do It”, Gibson Square London pg. 197
[51] Speckhard, A. (2013). “ The Boston Marathon Bombers: the Lethal Cocktail that Turned Troubled Youth to Terrorism”. Perspectives on Terrorism, Volume 7, Issue 3 pg.66
[52] Site News “French IS Suicide Bomber Calls for Lone-Wolf Attacks in Posthumous video”, Jihadist News, 30th of September 2015