Security experts often posit that the greatest terrorist threat to the so-called western countries of Europe and North America come from homegrown violent extremists (HVEs). To give due credit, even though the number of plots developed by HVEs sympathetic to various extremist causes including racism, anti-Semitism, and jihadism, have increased in recent years, federal and state security officials have also improved in their disruption. However, given the potential adverse effects of a single case, it is essential to critically review the countermeasures employed by security officials to combat HVE threats.
Social media and the internet may be supporting the existence and continued operation of HVEs. Nance (2014) essentially defined HVEs as individuals who, rather than travel abroad to fight for a foreign-based terrorist organization, remain home to conduct terrorist attacks. The term has been widely used to refer to individuals who are sympathetic to terrorist groups such as the al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as right-wing extremists. In rare cases, these HVEs maybe unaffiliated with any groups, but push their terrorist agenda. They are often inspired and motivated to act on propaganda on the internet and social media, and sometimes interact with like-minded people, or get influenced on these platforms.
Terrorist attacks, at first glance, may appear spontaneous and random, giving the feeling that they may be impossible to predict or stop. The increasing sheer number of terrorist attacks instigated by HVEs, and wide range of extremist agendas being pushed further reinforces this impression. The attacks that the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for seemingly holding to this notion as well. For instance, in July of 2016, a French citizen, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a truck through a promenade, killing 84 civilians and injuring at least 300 more in Nice, France (Armstrong, Derrick, Hienz, Ligon, & Southers, 2019). The individual, despite having no formal ties to the Islamic State, was sympathetic to the terrorist group and had executed the attack in their name.
The Frequency and Response to HVE Attacks
The prevalence of HVEs sympathetic to notable terrorist groups and extremist ideals have increased in recent years. Dauber and Robinson (2019) assert that since 2014, individuals supporting specifically the Islamic State have attempted 455 attacks outside of the declared territories of Syria, Iraq, and other countries. These are widely referred to as external operations. However, Dauber and Robinson (2019) note that these figures represent both successful terror strikes, as well as plots that were thwarted through the intervention of law enforcement personnel. The schemes that were disrupted through military raids in Iraq or Syria against notable Islamic State instigators and planners are, however, not included. Of the reported 455 attempted terrorist attacks, 80% or an estimated 363 were carried out by HVEs who identified as Islamic State supporters. The meagre remaining 20% constituted attacks made by foreign fighters who had returned home or individuals who had relocated to other countries solely to pursue terror attacks (Dauber & Robinson, 2019). This figure shows that there are many people within the country drawn to the ideals held by terrorists, and are ready to commit attacks in their name.
Fortunately, despite the oppressive number of HVE attacks, and the illusion that they are random acts that cannot be predicted, they are regularly stopped by security officials. Perhaps a shining example of this is when authorities apprehended Rondell Henry in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Rondell had plotted to attack pedestrians at National Harbor, which was a popular outdoor venue with many regular visitors, following inspiration by Islamic State mujahidin (warriors) on social media which he had followed for two years. He also stated that he had modelled his attack to that of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s in Nice, France (Armstrong et al., 2019). Luckily, the would-be terrorist and HVE were discovered and arrested in time.
The case of Rondell Henry is not an isolated incident. Dauber and Robinson (2019) indicate that law enforcement and other local security officials have successfully intercepted and effectively halted an approximate 58% of all HVE attacks within the past five years or so. Admittedly, this level of success in disrupting inspired attacks is not an ideally high number, but clearly, some things are being done correctly. It is, therefore, essential to understand the measures that are being implemented to identify, intervene, and stop homegrown violent extremist acts of terror.
Understanding the Recruitment and Nurturing of HVE Threats
To understand the countermeasures undertaken against HVEs and inspired terrorist threats, it is essential to know how the phenomenon of HVEs fits within the overall narrative of terrorism and acts of extremist violence. Given that the primary terrorist organization in the world right now, to which a majority of terrorist acts have been attributed to, is the Islamic State, many of the examples in this review will be in the context of this particular group’s activities, ideas, and philosophies. Furthermore, the declaration of the caliphate in 2014 is highly regarded as a heightening factor for modern terrorism around the world. It, therefore, follows that no review of modern terrorist recruitment and mobilization strategies, tactics, and ideas can be divorced from an assessment of Islamic State operations.
There is the example of mass recruitment, where the Islamic State leaders initially encouraged radical Muslims to immigrate into Islamic State territories once they announced the Syrian and Iraqi caliphate. Forty thousand individuals heeded this call (Luna & McCormack, 2015). However, the overall aim was to implement an approach where fighters would be sent back home to orchestrate attacks, and also encourage HVEs through social media to execute attacks on their own proactively.
In more contemporary times, social media and the internet have been used extensively as a recruitment tool for terrorist and extremist groups. The most popular and recent example of such a campaign was the “March Forth Whether Light or Heavy” video that had been posted by the Islamic State, and widely reposted by individual users. As a result, this video, which called for Muslims everywhere to ‘join the fight’ in their land wherever that maybe, was heavily circulated online. It was, in essence, a HVE recruitment tool.
This recruitment approach of speeches that are released on the internet and social media platforms is not unique to the Islamic State. Propaganda speeches were also previously posted by al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, and other extremist Aryan groups such as neo-Nazis, Christian Identity groups, and the KKK. These speeches have been instigating sympathizers to execute attacks against specific groups of people, whether the West or particular racial and ethnic minorities. However, very few groups have had the relative success of the Islamic State in prompting sympathetic HVEs to act. As a result, this would suggest that the organization’s propaganda may not be solely responsible for the operations conducted by HVEs sympathetic to the Islamic State’s cause.
Beyond online and social media propaganda, the Islamic State has had infamy for utilizing recruiters and virtual planners. They implement a combination of private chatrooms and public-facing platforms to identify potential sympathizers, foster relationships with these individuals, and eventually compel them to take action (Levin, 2015). Foreign fighters in this scenario play critical yet fluid roles in the effort to recruit HVEs by amplifying the group’s propaganda, planning attacks, or personally recruiting HVEs. These roles are embodied in a modern context with Samantha Lewthwaiter, or the “White Widow”, who was a British national turned foreign fighter who recruited and nurtured HVEs for a terrorist attack in a mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
These networks, whether physical or virtual, maybe what distinguishes the Islamic State, and its success in nurturing HVEs than other predecessors. This approach allows the Islamic State to continue posing the single most significant terrorism threat to the US and the West even in the face of diminishing territory, consistent raids and strikes, and loss of support in their Syrian and Iraqi regions. For this reason, I summarily dispute the Dauber and Robinson (2019) finding that 80% of all Islamic State attacks have been executed by HVEs alone. Instead, this assessment fails to distinguish the cases where the individual involved had been recruited, either physically or virtually, influenced, and set up for the attack. As a result, it is reasonable to assume that recruited local HVEs have executed some of the attacks. In contrast, others have been completed by individuals who were inspired without any particular ties or contact with recruitment networks.
Countermeasures Addressing the HVE Threat
The recruitment networks used to identify and communicate with the sympathizers of terrorist and extremist groups are highly vulnerable to attack. From the highest levels of hierarchy, targeted and coordinated military and special operation strikes have been able to kill or otherwise eliminate the influence of battlefield commanders, leaders, and virtual planners of these groups (Luna & McCormack, 2015). The most notable of these in recent times is the elimination of al-Qaeda leader and patriarch Osama bin Laden in coordinated special operations strike in Pakistan.
Law enforcement has also consistently apprehended and prosecuted members of terrorist and other extremist groups, including bloggers, recruiters, outspoken sympathizers, and other agitators. Terrorist recruitment cells have been dismantled and their members prosecuted, virtual planners and media emirs have been arrested or eliminated in the battlefield, and military operations such as Operation Inherent Resolve have garnered relative support and execution. These activities have significantly allowed security officials to hamper the recruitment of an entirely new generation of HVEs and foreign fighters on many levels, therefore crippling many major terrorist and extremist groups in the world.
Another important countermeasure in the fight against homegrown violent extremists, especially in the US, is the development of the Department of Homeland Security, and supporting legislature and policies. The Federal government has significantly collaborated with state, local, tribal, and territorial leaders, as well as the private sector to cripple homegrown threats dramatically. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in particular, has illuminated the strategies, tools, and tactics that have, in the past, been brought to bear on terrorist activities within the borders of the country, and without. While past successes may not necessarily guarantee future results, it can be reasonably projected that strategies that have succeeded in the past should be reviewed to address the disparate challenges of today.
The DHS, through the enabling of legislation such as the US Patriot Act, and similar policies implemented worldwide through the efforts of UN-affiliated nations has successfully implemented a multi-tier protection approach that employs modern, technology-heavy methods in intelligence-gathering and analysis. This approach, coupled with the specialized training of frontline personnel and the building of international partners’ capacity works to purge international terrorist and extremist activity, and further push the country’s boundaries outward by creating a comprehensive defense system. A more unique, and a rather intuitive implementation of this defense strategy involves the DHS employs multiple, mutually supportive defense layers that override the weaknesses of a single system that may be vulnerable to a single point of weakness, and ultimately failure. This context and implementation have been employed in various capacities, including cybersecurity, border security, and aviation security. Multiple and redundant security layers and intelligence-gathering platforms provide awareness of hostile entities within the US borders, or outside its borders to allow early intervention before an attack is launched.
The DHS has also, notably, pioneered the development of the National Targeting Center (NTC), which has achieved several noteworthy successes within the borders of the US, and in extending the protective boundaries of the country outwards. The NTC’s primary counterterrorism functions have been those of screening and vetting individuals, and these are duties in which the NTC has been on the global forefront. The NTC uses, within the counterterrorism laws and policies, an array of sophisticated targeting tools, as well as various levels of open-source and classified intelligence in a proactive rather than reactive capacity to identify potential threats. These may include terrorist threats, both international and local, extremist movements, illegal support networks, and international criminal syndicates. The organization then identifies emerging targets and paints them for domestic and international authorities to facilitate interdictions across all modes of transportation for both passengers and cargo that may represent a threat to national and international security. This targeting helps to ensure that HVEs, as well as their facilitators and potential sympathizers, are disabled at the earliest possible stages of their operations, making the NTC a critical, if not the most effective counterterrorism tool in the federal government’s arsenal.
The truth of the matter is that, before 9/11, there existed little infrastructure to share information and resources among various national and international security agencies regarding terrorism and extremist acts of violence. The events of this fateful day, in large part, led to the development of the Department of Homeland Security, and various national and international policies such as the US Patriot Act, the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR), the EU Council Common Position 931 on combating terrorism, and the UK Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill. With these policies and resolve to counter terrorist threats whenever they may arise, there was introduced sufficient infrastructure to identify and implement smart, targeted sanctions and blacklists, which were explicitly designed to disrupt terrorist activities. This was achieved through the widespread highlighting and criminalizing of terrorist members. Effectively, this cut off support to such entities, alienating them and depriving their access to funds and other resources through freezing assets, extraditions, and travel bans.
These measures, however, also translated locally, as the DHS provided avenues in which state, local, tribal and territorial leaders (SLTT), and private entities could share information regarding terrorist and extremist threats with the federal government. Before 9/11, there barely existed a functional, streamlined framework to facilitate the collection and relay of Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR). SAR is defined as the official collection and documentation of behavior that may be observed to be indicative, within reasonable parameters, or pre-operational planning of terrorism or other criminal activities (Luna & McCormack, 2015). Post-9/11, the DHS, along with the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) along with SLTT entities, developed the Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI).
The NSI would be a critical resource in the identification of terrorist activities while maintaining the legal, social, and civil liberties of the American Citizen. It would establish a framework for the gathering, documentation, processing, analyzing, and relay of SAR information relating to terrorism, with acute consideration of American civil liberties and rights. Fusion Centers, which had previously existed in a pre-9/11 capacity to help law enforcement bodies with criminal intelligence analysis, expanded drastically. These local and state-operated centers quickly became the focal points for the collection, receipt, analysis, and transmission of terrorism and HVE-related information between the SLTT entities, and private sector partners, with the federal government. This engagement with SLTTs, the development of Fusion Centers, and collaboration with local and national authorities, coupled with legislative support through the development of policies and bodies such as the NSI have played a significant role in the detection, prevention, and protection against HVEs.
Conclusion
It is essential to reflect on the steps and progress that has been made in the prevention and mitigation of terrorist threats since the insurgence of terrorism in the 20th century worldwide. However, the destructive nature of terrorist attacks demands constant vigilance, and review of security policies, strategies and tactics that have worked, or failed, in the past, and how these approaches can be implemented in future protection efforts. With a global focus on the war against terror, terrorist and extremist groups are resulting in the cultivation of homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) to push their agenda, and execute attacks remotely in their name. This has been enabled considerably by the development of information and communication technology and the internet.
Modern terrorist groups and organizations, such as the Islamic State, have developed elaborate recruitment networks through the internet and social media, as well as other virtual platforms that reach large audiences, and push their propaganda. However, these recruitment networks are vulnerable to attack. A viable approach to the mitigation of HVE threats and attacks would be the combination of conventional investigative techniques, both virtually and personally, with a more concerted effort towards disabling virtual planners, agitators, and recruiters both within the borders of the country, and abroad. The relative success of local authorities in intervening and stopping local terrorist activities lends relevance to this approach.
Further, the supporting infrastructure of the DHS, the NSI, and legislative policies on a national and international level have significantly streamlined the burden of information gathering, analysis, and transmission to allow the disabling of HVE recruitment and mobilization cells. While past successes may not be reliable indicators of future performance, one can optimistically project that if law enforcement and security officials, supported by this framework and resources can continue to disrupt physical and virtual recruitment networks consistently, then the threat of HVEs may be eliminated.
References
Armstrong, G., Derrick, D., Hienz, J., Ligon, G., & Southers, E. (2019). Characteristics of homegrown violent extremist radicalization.Los Angeles: National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events University of Southern California. Web.
Dauber, C. E., & Robinson, M. D. (2019). How homegrown violent extremism will likely continue to evolve as a significant threat. Online Terrorist Propaganda, Recruitment, and Radicalization, 81-102. Web.
Levin, B. (2015). The original web of hate: Revolution Muslim and American homegrown extremists. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(12), 1609-1630. Web.
Luna, E. & McCormack, W. (2015). Understanding the law of terrorism (2nd ed.). LexisNexis Group.
Nance, M. W. (2014). Terrorist recognition handbook: A practitioner’s manual for predicting and identifying terrorist activities (3rd ed.). CRC Press.