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Lone-wolf attacks duel with air strikes against Islamic State

WASHINGTON — Six needle-nosed CF-18 fighter jets took off from the Canadian Forces base in Cold Lake, Alberta, to join the coalition fighting the Islamic State on Tuesday. The next day, a convert to Islam attacked symbols of the Canadian state, killing a soldier and riddling the Parliament with bullets.

WASHINGTON — Six needle-nosed CF-18 fighter jets took off from the Canadian Forces base in Cold Lake, Alberta, to join the coalition fighting the Islamic State on Tuesday. The next day, a convert to Islam attacked symbols of the Canadian state, killing a soldier and riddling the Parliament with bullets.

As the United States, Canada and their allies armed with supersonic fighters, laser-guided bombs and unmanned aircraft strike the extremist group in Iraq and Syria, the terrorists are urging individual Muslims worldwide to kill non-believers with guns and knives.

While no clear links between the attacker in Ottawa and the Islamic State have been established, the carnage follows the group’s call last month for retaliation against Western targets — an exercise of what is known as asymmetric warfare against opponents with greater military, political and economic power.

More attacks by “lone wolves” or small groups on Western soil are likely, said Dr Jeffrey Simon, a specialist in political risk assessment and a visiting lecturer at the University of California.

“There have always been lone-wolf attacks throughout history, but the numbers are increasing, and it’s getting more difficult to track these individuals in terms of when, where, or who these lone wolves may be,” Dr Simon said. “The game changer is the Internet. What the Internet does is allow groups like the Islamic State to put out a call around the globe.”

The primary hypothesis at this point should be that the Ottawa attacker was influenced by the Islamic State and its call to action, said Dr Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of a terrorism centre at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington policy group. “This is an asymmetric style of attack, the timing is quite meaningful, the targets are highly symbolic — Canadian power and the Canadian military.”

Unlike Al Qaeda and earlier Palestinian groups, which concentrated on carefully planned operations such as the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, the Islamic State is trying to exploit economic, social and political discontent to recruit younger Muslims in the West, said two US intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Initial reports depict the Ottawa shooter, Michael Zahef-Bibeau, as a troubled 32-year-old convert to Islam with a criminal record for drug-related offenses, robbery, assault and possession of a weapon.

Dr Marc Tyrrell, a senior research fellow at Carlton University’s Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies in Ottawa, said Zahef-Bibeau seemed to fit one profile for radicalisation, as a petty criminal.

“The message coming out of ISIS and other groups provides justification for taking larger actions they want to take anyway. It makes them feel they’re part of the group,” Dr Tyrrell said, using an acronym for the Islamic State’s former name.

At the same time, the US officials said, the Sunni extremist group is capitalising on the power of social media to encourage small and even spontaneous attacks by individuals and then spread fear that one of the officials called disproportionate to the danger.

They cited the latest edition of the Islamic State’s glossy magazine, Dabiq, named for a city in northern Syria where some Muslims believe a final battle between Muslims and Christians will take place.

One article says: “Every Muslim should get out of his house, find a crusader and kill him,” arguing that smaller attacks are more likely to remain secret beforehand and then succeed.

Lone wolves can fly under the radar. “In this case, this individual was on a watch list in Canada, but he was still able to perpetrate the attack because he wasn’t being watched 24/7,” said Dr Simon, author of Lone Wolf Terrorism: Understanding The Growing Threat.

The lone-wolf attacks require better and faster coordination among intelligence, military and law enforcement officials. BLOOMBERG

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