Who's behind the Boston bombings:Lone -wolf , or organized terrorism

The bomb blast in Boston Marathon has focused attention again on the danger posed by "lone-wolf" terrorists.

The FBI investigators  have found that the devices used in the Boston Marathon attack  are similar to the "lone wolf" terrorists.    Investigators combing through the grim aftermath of the deadly Boston Marathon terrorist attack have found evidence that timing devices were used on Monday to detonate the bombs that ripped through race spectators, an offi
cial briefed on the investigation into the first large-scale bombing in the US since the 9/11 attacks, said.

FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers told a news conference that pieces of nylon had been recovered from the scene, along with fragments of ball bearings and nails that were "possibly contained in a pressure-cooker device".

He said they were being sent to the agency's laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, where experts would reconstruct the devices to determine their make-up and components. 

The explosives detonated in the Boston bombings were homemade devices made probably using pressure cookers packed with shrapnel, a recipe commonly used by terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, indicating the possibility of a "lone wolf" attack.

Pressure-cooker explosives have been used in international terrorism, and have been recommended for lone-wolf operatives by Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen.

He added: "The investigation is in its infancy. There are no claims of responsibility and the range of suspects and motives remains wide open."

As FBI officials are thorougly investigating every possible links but  have not been able to trace the link of this terrorist act to a foreign country.


On Thursday  morning, the President will travel to Boston to speak at an interfaith service dedicated to those who were gravely wounded or killed in Monday's bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

There is a major difference in dealing with al qaeda type terrorist groups and the lone wolf terrorists

That lone wolves are a force to be reckoned with, since they can be as dangerous as the larger terrorist groups and cells that exist throughout the world.

It is a tedious task to locate the lone wolf terrorists as they don't take orders from any head of the terror group and thus has no communications among members for the authorities of the groupand  whose modi operandi are conceived and directed by the individual without any direct outside command .Therefore ,the investigators find it tough  to identify or capture the terrorists .

Counterterrorism officials and analysts belive that the "lone-wolf" phenomenon is often fed by self-radicalization on the Internet.

"While there are methods to monitor some of this activity, it is simply impossible to know the inner thinking of every at-risk person," the National Security Preparedness Group said in its report in September.

The proliferation of extremist websites in English or other European languages and the emergence of  clerics such as Anwar al Awlaki have spread al Qaeda's message more widely than ever before.


The lone-wolf terrorists are inspired by al Qaeda  or one of the franchise groups. But the lone-wolf threat can be generated by a broad array of ideologies, not just jihadism. A recent reminder of this was the July 22 attack in Oslo, Norway, conducted by lone wolf Anders Breivi


 After the 9/11 terror attacks in united States , AL Qaeda had decided to urge solo campaigns because it was too difficult to launch such major operations .

To counter the challenge of the   "lone Wolf" terrorist  there is a need for International cooperation among both law enforcement and military agencies of the world.

Canada, along with spy agencies in the United States, France, Germany and Australia, is trying to develop a greater understanding of what motivates solo attackers.

In 1990s the term "Lone wolf' was popularised to encourage fellow racists to act alone in committing violent crimes for tactical reasons like a movement or ideology .

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an al-Qaeda affiliate, has been especially vocal in encouraging lone acts of terrorism.
In 2003, an article  published on an extremist internet forum called Sada al Jihad (Echoes of Jihad), in which Osama bin Laden sympathizers were encouraged to take action without waiting for instructions.


In 2012 ,a 29-year-old Moroccan,Amine El Khalifi  was charged with plotting to carry out a bombing on the U.S. Capitol and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against federal property.

He is alleged to have worked with others he believed to be al Qaeda operatives, who provided him with a suicide vest and conducted a demonstration of explosives in a quarry in West Virginia, according to a Department of Justice affidavit.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had said lone wolves "were harder to detect in part because by their very definition, they're not conspiring with others, they may not be communicating with others, there's very little to indicate that something is under way.

   

President Barack Obama in August 2012 warned that a lone-wolf attack was "the most likely scenario that we have to guard against right now."