Beyond Indicators: Analysing Lone Actor Terrorist Events

• In Event: Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorists

Abstract

In this paper, we present findings from the EU-funded FP7 PRIME Project (Preventing, Interdicting and Mitigating Lone Actor Extremism). We introduce the project's analytical framework, which motivated us to examine the stability of different categories of indicators associated with lone actor terrorist events across ideological, temporal and geographical contexts. Using a custom-designed dataset of lone actor terrorist cases which took place in Western Europe and the United States, we model interrelations between the features of the radicalisation, attack preparation and attack phases of 125 lone actor terrorist events, using state transition diagrams and smallest space analysis. We discuss the implications of our analytical approach for the disruption of lone actor terrorism, including the use of indicator- of risk factor-based risk assessment tools.

Authors

• Noemie Bouhana, University College London

• Emily Corner, University College London

• Paul Gill, University College London