‘Lone wolf’ the greatest terrorist threat to Western countries: RMS

The ‘lone offender’ attack poses one of the greatest terrorist threats to Western countries, RMS reported.
RMS describes a lone offender as “a single individual driven to hateful attacks based on a particular set of beliefs without a larger group’s knowledge or support” in its RMS News.
The article is in response to the July 22, 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway. A large bomb detonated outside of the country’s government offices in the downtown core of its capital city, Oslo. Hours later, a gunman started a shooting spree at a political youth camp, killing approximately 80. Police were quoted in the media saying the attacks were linked.
Catching ‘lone wolf terrorists’ is difficult and haphazard, even in Western countries with the most effective and well-resourced counter-terrorism services, RMS says.
“With a minimal social network of plotters, the chance may only be one in four” that they will be caught, RMS said.
“In a small outlying peaceful country such as Norway, where the authorities ranked the terrorist threat as low, and dismissed right-wing extremism as not a serious threat, there would only have been a very slim chance of stopping a lone wolf terrorist through intelligence gathering,” said Dr. Gordon Woo, catastrophist at RMS.