These are exactly the “Lone Wolves” Lori Lowenthal Marcus has written about over three years ago.

The whole concept of LW’s has been so misconstrued, that the mere mention of it launches a knee-jerk reaction of “you’re trying to diminish the impact of large jihadi groups like AQ and IS”. It’s not.

WHO IS THE GRAND STRATEGIST OF MODERN GLOBAL JIHAD?

“His name is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, although he’s also known as abu Musab al Suri (the Syrian).  Perhaps his most significant contributions to the cause of global jihad was his insistence that the old-style al Qaeda, with its rigid hierarchical structure, was a disaster for the movement and had to be jettisoned in favor of a different strategy.  In his 1600 page manifesto, al Suri stressed the need for the global jihadi movement to create a new fighting style focused on “individual terrorism.”

This innovation, also known as “leaderless jihad,” is a strategy designed to escape detection. Al Suri advised followers not to have cells or “brigades” larger than ten members, and ideally the cells would be in the single digits.  He also advocated that jihadists use the Internet and other methods to gather their information to conduct attacks. Those unwilling to embrace his strategy before and in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, have now largely become believers, whether by necessity or by revelation.”