Perspectives on Greatest Threat of ISIS Loner

Greatest Threat is ISIS Loner.

In the June 13, 2016 The Journal Gazette Dr. Kuznar discusses his view of the ISIS threat.

In the wake of the tragic mass shooting incident in Orlando, and the reported shooter’s pledge to ISIS immediately before the attack, it is a good time to take stock of how ISIS is manifest and how it represents a danger to our homeland. It is also useful to consider whom its members hate, for that identifies allies in this fight. I have spent over two years intensively studying ISIS messaging, both in my capacity as an anthropologist from IPFW and in consultation with the U.S. Department of Defense and I, unfortunately, have some insight into their motives and how they operate.

The upshot is that ISIS’s presence in social media is unprecedented and will persist long after its defeat. Therefore, the threat from radicalized individuals will unfortunately persist for a long time. However, we are not helpless. We can minimize the threat and defend the homeland through a combination of effective law enforcement, collaboration with Muslim communities, respectful and legal vigilance, and reaching out to friends and loved ones when we see indications of radicalization.

It is useful to consider three faces of ISIS: the ISIS central organization that occupies areas of Syria and Iraq, ISIS affiliates who have pledged allegiance to ISIS central, and ISIS online.

ISIS central apparently has yet to organize an attack on the U.S. homeland, and has so far only organized Western attacks in Paris and Brussels. Also, we are winning the war against ISIS central; U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab militia are advancing toward ISIS’s capital of Raqqa in Syria, and the U.S. backed Iraqi government has advanced into Fallujah and is staging an ultimate advance on Mosul. ISIS central is beginning to crumble, as is its ability to attack us at home.

The ISIS affiliates that exist from Nigeria to India will suffer with the demise of ISIS central. Just in the past couple of days, the ISIS affiliate in Libya has lost major territory. Any capacity or motivation by ISIS central’s affiliates to attack our homeland will have been severely diminished.

ISIS online will persist for two reasons. First, ISIS central and its affiliates are organizations whose membership and leadership can be attacked and dismantled. But ISIS online is essentially leaderless; there is no thing to attack, other than a diffuse set of ideas, and ideas can be hard (but not impossible) to defeat. Second, once something exists online, it is there forever. As long as there are disaffected people who are looking for an outlet for their frustration and hate, the poisonous messages ISIS and other groups flood the internet with will be there for consumption.

Who does ISIS and their sympathizers hate? They essentially hate all humanity save for the tiny minority that represent their ultra-extreme views. I have studied ISIS’s prioritization of enemies, and their top enemies are Shia Muslims and all Sunni Muslims who do not conform to their extremely violent take on Islam. These ISIS enemies account for nearly a quarter of the world’s population. Next in line would be the West, and they consider the U.S. the leader of a Western movement to destroy Islam. ISIS has opened affiliates in India and China as well to oppose Hindus and Chinese secularism. Once you do the math (don’t forget Africa), it is easy to see that they hate everyone in the world who is not them.

The take-away for clearly understanding the nature of the ISIS threat to the homeland? First, as ISIS organizations are degraded and defeated, they may lash out with attacks, but these organizations will ultimately lose their ability to attack our homeland. A greater threat emanates from Americans who have joined ISIS returning as those organizations are defeated. The greatest threat to the homeland comes from lone wolf attackers who self-radicalize through online and social media sources, which unfortunately are likely to persist.

These sobering facts at least provide guidelines for how we can defend our homeland. The threat from organized groups abroad will ultimately go away. Any Americans who may return (which is likely to be few, recent analyses indicate that at least half of foreign fighters who join ISIS die with ISIS) must be located by law enforcement, which is possible since joining ISIS is a crime.

Lone wolf attackers will be very difficult, but not entirely impossible to guard against. There are things we can do. Don’t forget that the world is their enemy; that gives us a lot of allies. A Department of Justice funded study found that mosque attendance is an important factor that prevents radicalization. Muslim communities in the U.S. already have been proactive in working with law enforcement to prevent radicalization, which is a major reason why the U.S. has experienced much less jihadist terror than Europe.

Not all ISIS terrorists are Muslim initially; many are converts, “troubled souls” looking for an outlet for their hate. The Department of Homeland Security launched a “See Something, Say Something” campaign, in which citizens are encouraged to report suspicious activity to law enforcement officials. We can defend our homeland with simple vigilance that is respectful of everyone. This vigilance should extend to family members and friends who detect shifts toward radicalization in loved ones. In every case of a lone wolf attack, people close to the attackers witnessed troubling changes in behavior. We need to reach out to those we care about and keep them close to us, not to some movement of hate.

The events in Orlando are tragic and troubling, but the homeland is intact and we all can play productive roles to keep it that way.