A Lone Wolf vs. an Affiliated Terrorist

Abstract

The global terrorism database (GTD) shows that 3.5% of the total terror attacks across the world between 1970 to 2019 were targeted at tourists. A terror attack can be perpetrated by either a lone wolf or an affiliated terrorist. The analysis of the GTD conducted in this study shows that a terror attack targeted at tourists is 4.3 times more likely to have been perpetrated by a lone wolf than by affiliated terrorists. Since lone wolves operate individually, this finding implies that access control measures at tourist centers must regard individuals such as hawkers, newspaper vendors, freelance journalists, etc. who come around to do various businesses around tourists as potential terrorists until proven otherwise. Since lone wolves do not work for a terror group, tourist attraction centers located in the regions, territories, and countries with no presence of terror groups must not relax their counterterrorism control measures under the impression that they are safe from terror attacks.