Lone Wolf Terrorism

by Jeffrey D. Simon

  Ivins was fixated on Linscott, who was twenty-nine years younger than him. He told one of his therapists that he had intended to kill Linscott (at one point he had been angry with her) by driving to upstate New York in 2000 to watch her play in a soccer game and offering her a glass of wine afterward from a jug of wine that he had spiked with poison. Linscott, however, was injured during the game, and Ivins changed his mind. The therapist told Ivins that she would have to report this to the authorities and had him sign a statement pledging to contact her immediately if he had any further homicidal thoughts.31

  Despite his deteriorating mental health, nobody stopped Ivins from continuing to work with anthrax spores at Fort Detrick. A report in later years (March 2011) by a panel of behavioral analysts stated that Ivins's history of mental problems should have disqualified him from obtaining a security clearance and that he should not have been allowed by the army to work with dangerous biological agents.32

  But work he did, and in the weeks leading up to the first wave of anthrax letters in September 2001 and the second wave in October 2001, Ivins spent unusually long hours alone at night in his lab, a behavior that investigators later argued was evidence he was preparing the deadly anthrax spores for the letter attacks. There was even stronger circumstantial evidence pointing to Ivins as the anthrax letter culprit, including the finding by the FBI that an anthrax spore-batch (from the Ames anthrax strain) known as RMR-1029 was the parent material for the anthrax letter attacks and that Ivins had created and maintained this spore-batch in his laboratory at USAMRIID. Ivins was also among the few anthrax researchers in the country who had the ability to produce the highly purified spores that were used in the mailings.33

  Additional circumstantial evidence identifying Ivins as the perpetrator was the fact that the anthrax letters were sent from a mailbox outside the Princeton University offices of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, the same sorority with which Ivins later admitted he was obsessed. Even though Princeton, New Jersey, was an approximately three-hour drive from Frederick, Maryland, where USAMRIID is located, as noted earlier, Ivins often took three-hour or even longer drives to visit various KKG sorority chapter houses in different states.34 Investigators also learned that Ivins had taken unauthorized environmental samplings (by taking swabs) for anthrax contamination after the attacks in the Fort Detrick building where he worked. When he found anthrax contamination only in the area where he himself worked and realized that it would point to him as a suspect in the attacks, he decontaminated his office and lab and failed to report it.35 He also submitted questionable samples of RMR-1029 when asked to do so by the FBI, a move viewed by investigators as a way to deceive them into thinking that he never had the same batch of anthrax spores that were used in the attacks.36

  The anthrax letter attacks occurred in two waves. First, two letters postmarked on September 18, 2001, were sent to television news anchor Tom Brokaw at NBC News and to “Editor” at the New York Post, both located in New York City. Then, two more letters, postmarked on October 9, 2001, were mailed to the Washington, DC, offices of Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. Another envelope filled with anthrax spores that was never recovered was believed to have been sent to the American Media, Inc., building in Boca Raton, Florida. Five people died from inhaling the Bacillus anthracis spores, and seventeen others were infected, some by inhaling the spores and others by absorbing the spores through the skin, which is known as cutaneous anthrax. Ten thousand more people believed to have been exposed to the anthrax spores underwent antibiotic prophylaxis. Several postal facilities and mailrooms were contaminated, as were buildings and offices on Capitol Hill. The Environmental Protection Agency spent $27 million from its superfund program to decontaminate the Capitol Hill facilities.37

  The anthrax attacks, coming on the heels of the 9/11 suicide attacks, spread fear throughout the country that al Qaeda had struck again. There was also concern that the United States would now experience bioterrorism in addition to the usual conventional terrorist attacks such as hijackings, bombings, assassinations, and so forth. Meanwhile, the investigation by the FBI would last nearly seven years and become one of the largest and most complex in the agency's history. The Amerithrax Task Force, as the investigative effort was called, involved twenty-five to thirty full-time investigators from the FBI, the US Postal Inspection Service, and other law-enforcement agencies, as well as federal prosecutors from the District of Columbia and the Justice Department's Counterterrorism Section. More than ten thousand witness interviews were conducted on six different continents, as were eighty searches. More than six thousand items of potential evidence were recovered. The case also involved the issuance of more than 5,750 grand jury subpoenas and the collection of 5,730 environmental samples from sixty site locations.38

  It took many years before the FBI was able to connect all the dots and identify Ivins as the prime suspect. Along the way, the agency wrongly suggested that a physician who used to work at Fort Detrick, Steven Hatfill, might be the anthrax attacker. Hatfill sued the government and won a $5.8 million settlement from the Department of Justice, which also issued an official letter exonerating him.39 When the FBI finally started questioning Ivins in 2007 about his role in the anthrax attacks, the troubled scientist began to unravel. He never admitted to the attacks, but there were many inconsistencies in his interviews with investigators, including telling them that he really wasn't an expert on anthrax.40 His mental health, which was always fragile, further deteriorated during this period. In a group therapy session on July 9, 2008, he told the participants that he had access to a .22-caliber rifle, a Glock handgun, and body armor and planned to kill all his coworkers and everybody else who had wronged him in his life. The therapist called the police the next day. Instead of arresting him, though, the police took Ivins to Frederick Memorial Hospital for evaluation. He was released two weeks later. Soon afterward, he committed suicide by taking an overdose of Tylenol PM.41

  Because of the missteps in the FBI investigation, including initially suggesting that Hatfill was the anthrax letter attacker, and the lack of a “smoking gun” to implicate Ivins, many people believed that Ivins was innocent. The FBI, however, announced shortly after his suicide that charges were about to be brought against Ivins for the anthrax letter attacks. Then, in February 2010, the Justice Department, FBI, and the US Postal Inspection Service formally concluded their investigation into the attacks and issued a report that presented the circumstantial case against Ivins.42 In January 2011, a National Academy of Sciences panel concluded that while the genetic analysis of the anthrax used in the attacks “did not definitively demonstrate” that they were grown from a sample taken from his laboratory, the evidence was “consistent with and supports an association” between Ivins's flask and the anthrax used in the attacks.43 Additionally, the panel of behavioral analysts that faulted the army for not taking earlier action against Ivins in view of his serious psychological problems also stated that the government's case against Ivins was persuasive. They wrote: “Dr. Ivins was psychologically disposed to undertake the mailings; his behavioral history demonstrated his potential for carrying them out; and he had the motivation and the means.”44 The panel also found that Ivins committed the attacks in order to get revenge against an array of imagined enemies, including the news media, and also “to elevate his own significance” and thereby rescue his anthrax vaccines research, the funding for which was being threatened in 2001.45

  The tragic case of Bruce Ivins demonstrates what can happen when you take a brilliant but very troubled man and give him access to some of the deadliest germs in the world. Although he served his country well for most of his life, dedicating his career to finding the best vaccine to protect Americans from anthrax infection, he ultimately could not fight the demons in his mind that drove him to become the most infamous lone wolf bioterrorist in US history. Part ego, part greed, and a lot of paranoia, Ivins could not resist the temptation to use the very germs he dedicated his life to fight against as a w
eapon in his nefarious plans for glory, revenge, and possible financial reward. That an entire nation was held at bay by the acts of a solitary individual illustrates the impact of the lone wolf terrorist.

  WHEN INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY BECOME DANGEROUS

  In most fields, we applaud individuals and organizations that are innovative and creative. From art, music, and theater to science, technology, and business, those who dare to be different and think outside the box can be rewarded with financial and professional success. But when terrorists become innovative and creative, they can be quite dangerous. Their innovations can become new ways to inflict fear and bloodshed upon the world. Earlier, I described some of the reasons why lone wolves are innovative, including the lack of any group decision-making process that could stifle creativity. Lone wolves are also not afraid of failing, unlike many terrorist groups that carefully calculate the costs and benefits of any planned attack. How, then, do some lone wolves use their creativity and innovation for terrorist operations?

  First, several lone wolves have combined knowledge of a particular field with creativity in designing an attack. For example, Bruce Ivins was one of the world's foremost authorities on anthrax and was able to use that expertise in preparing anthrax spores for the letter attacks. Other individuals or groups may have thought up a similar scenario but felt it was beyond their capability to produce spores that would survive being sent through the mail. Ivins, although depressed and suffering most of his life from mental illness, was still confident enough in his own abilities as a scientist to believe he could do something nobody before had ever attempted. He was aware, like most people, that the Postal Service had been used in the past for terrorist attacks, such as the sending of letter and package bombs in the United States and other countries. Why not try something different, he most likely thought, such as sending a biological agent through the mail?

  Mario Buda, another lone wolf we discussed earlier, combined expertise with creative thinking as the likely perpetrator of the 1920 Wall Street bombing. Buda was quite knowledgeable about dynamite, having been involved in prior attacks that used that type of explosive. When he was active with an Italian anarchist group, the Galleanists, Buda was a major player in constructing dynamite bombs that were used in a national mail-bomb plot and then in another series of attacks in which the Galleanists simply left bombs in the middle of the night in front of the homes of prominent officials, including the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. When Buda, who was hiding in New Hampshire, decided in September 1920 to strike one last time in retaliation for the recent indictment of his friends and fellow Galleanists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, he had to come up with a new mode of attack. He probably knew that the authorities would be on the lookout for attacks similar to those that Galleanists had tried before. That would eliminate the use of package bombs or placing bombs at the doorsteps of targets. A standoff attack, in which a powerful bomb would be far enough away from the target not to arouse suspicion but still near enough to cause damage, would seem to be the best option. Since there had not been any major automobile or horse-and-cart bombings by terrorists in the United States in the past, Buda likely felt confident that police and security guards would not be suspicious of a horse-drawn wagon parked close to the J. P. Morgan building and other targets on Wall Street.46 Buda was thus able to implement the first vehicle bombing in US history. He traveled to New York, where he constructed the bomb with a timer and placed it in a horse-drawn wagon that he rode to Wall Street.47 He then fled the scene of his carnage, never to be heard from again.

  Another area where a lone wolf can combine expertise in a field with imaginative thinking is cyberterrorism. This involves using the Internet and other communication and information systems that are linked by computers to cause disruptions and chaos in government, businesses, and everyday life. Among the worst-case scenarios would be terrorists sabotaging air traffic control systems and thereby causing airplane crashes; sabotaging electric power systems, thereby causing power blackouts; or sending computer viruses around the world that cause disruption or even collapse of international financial and banking systems. Most cyberterrorist attacks thus far, however, have been relatively low-level incidents, including distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which are “attempts to render computers unavailable to users through a variety of means, including saturating the target computers or networks with external communication requests, thereby denying service to legitimate users.”48 Although no cyberterrorist attack has yet to approach the worst-case scenarios, the history of terrorism has taught us to never underestimate the ability of individuals or groups to defy expectations. What makes cyberterrorism so attractive to lone wolves is that they can launch an attack in the privacy of their own home. The targets could be a government or business located anywhere in the world. Just as the Internet is growing with breathtaking speed, so too are the computer skills of individuals everywhere. It would be naïve and dangerous to assume that a sophisticated cyberterrorist attack is beyond the capabilities of the knowledgeable and skilled lone wolf computer geek.

  Having a particular skill, however, is not a prerequisite for a lone wolf to think up and implement an innovative attack. Lone wolves can get up to speed regarding weapons, tactics, and other aspects of a terrorist operation through individual research via the Internet or, in pre-Internet days, through acquiring books, articles, and other materials from libraries and other sources. For example, Muharem Kurbegovic, the Alphabet Bomber, who was among the first terrorists to threaten to use chemical warfare agents, learned how to make chemical weapons in the mid-1970s by reading such books as Guide to Chemical and Gas Warfare, The Book of Poison, and Unconventional Warfare Devices and Techniques. These books were found in his apartment after his arrest.49 In today's Internet world, there is really nothing holding a creative terrorist back. Once an individual thinks up a new or different type of terrorist scenario, he or she can begin reading webpages, blogs, online publications, and other information to learn enough about the target, tactic, and/or weapon required for the planned attack.

  Lone wolves can also use their creativity and innovation to catch counterterrorist planners off guard. Protecting against terrorism in the past has been more of a reactive than anticipatory strategy. Airport security, for example, adapts rather than anticipates what terrorists may do. Once terrorists began sneaking knives and other weapons onboard for hijackings in the early 1960s, airports screened passengers with metal detectors. When terrorists began blowing up planes in midair with bombs hidden in luggage in the late 1960s, x-ray machines were put in place at airports in an effort to discover these bombs. Following an attempt by Richard Reid, a British citizen with ties to al Qaeda, to bring down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on December 22, 2001, with explosives hidden in his shoes, airports began requiring passengers to take off their shoes for inspection before boarding planes. The tendency by security officials to wait until something happens and then take measures to try to prevent similar attacks plays into the hands of the creative terrorist, who, by thinking up something clever and new, is able to stay one step ahead of those dedicated to combating this threat.

  When lone wolves suffer from mental illness, their creativity and innovation present even greater challenges for counterterrorist officials. No longer can any sense of rationality be expected from these types of terrorists. While all lone wolves, as noted earlier, have an advantage over terrorist groups in not having to worry about alienating their supporters with a misguided attack or having their group wiped out in a government or law-enforcement crackdown following a major incident, there is still an element of rationality for most lone wolves in their decision making. Not so for those lone wolves who are emotionally disturbed. That makes it more difficult for authorities to anticipate the actions of these types of terrorists.

  The creative and innovative nature of lone wolves also makes them capable of launching “black swan” types of attacks. These are unique, nove
l terrorist incidents that nobody had previously thought possible. The term “black swan” was originally a metaphor for things that were believed impossible to exist. This was due to the fact that, for centuries, people in Europe had only seen white swans in nature. However, after the discovery of Australia and the sightings of black swans in the late-seventeenth century, the meaning of the term changed to refer to things and events that were perceived to be impossible but could actually occur. According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the bestselling book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, a black swan has three main attributes. First, it is an event that is an outlier, since it lies beyond the realm of normal expectations. Second, it has an extreme impact. And third, even though we never expect such an event to occur, we tend to come up with explanations for it after its occurrence, which then makes the black swan seem to be explainable and predictable.50 While terrorist groups may also be capable of perpetrating black-swan attacks, the boundless nature of lone wolves and their total freedom to think up anything they want and then try to act on it makes them more likely than a terrorist group to commit an attack off everyone's radar.51