hand, the Arab Spring led to a spiral of instability
and war in certain countries, as it was the case for
Syria. The civil war that sparked in this country in
2012 demonstrated not only the reticence of regimes
to respond to social demands but also the
degree of complexity that a confl ict can reach,
as it was a war that involved multiple actors, both
at a national and international level.
Nevertheless, the stability in Western countries
does not exempt them from also suffering the
consequences of violent acts of terrorism. As a
matter of fact, this past decade, both European
and American citizens have seen their fair share
of extremist action being carried out in their homelands.
Though these acts are less common in
Western countries when compared to the Middle
East, they are carried out by a contemporary
threat: “freelancers” or “lone wolves”. Little is really
known about the true origin of these individuals,
though they have been quickly portrayed as
young, marginalized and, later, radicalized youths.
However, he described them as third generation
jihadists (Gerges, 2006), indicating that they are
the evolution of the international movement started
by Bin Laden, and marks its genesis after 9/11,
once international jihadist groups realized the immense
consternation engendered by the terrorist
attacks. He expands his depiction of “freelancers”
by emphasizing that most of them are not well informed
on the current situation in the Middle East
and Al-Qaeda’s enormous loss of public support
amongst Muslims. Instead, they tend to believe
that transnational jihad is still at its peak, partly
because Western media feasts on terrorist attacks
to ensure audience, hence becoming an indirect
form of jihadist propaganda. Bearing this idea in
mind, they occasionally opt to contact jihadi organizations
Protesters carry Al-Qaeda fl ags during an anti-government protest in Idlib Governorate, Syria. Friday, March 11, 2016. Source: Khalil
Ashawi/Reuters
to assist in the perpetration of terrorist
attacks in their own countries, though most of the
attacks are carried out without any previous contact
with the organizations themselves and merely
respond to general calls for violence against
the West. An example of this was the Nice terrorist
attack in 2016, in which a truck was used to run
over a crowd. This action caused major commotion
in Western societies and gave room for more
insight on how to face this new form of terrorism. A
day later, during an interview, Gerges stated that
“the lone wolf phenomenon was here to stay”
and that “there was no easy fi x” as “even some
of the most professionalized intelligence agencies
in the world … are having diffi culties fi nding mechanisms
and solutions to the lone wolf phenomenon”.
Following this line of thought, it can be
theorized that the solution does not lie in infl ating
aimlessly our national security budgets, but rather
in carefully studying and understanding the complex
“freelancer” phenomenon from a sociological
point of view; always avoiding taking a strictly
cultural or religious approach.
Agosto - 2021 Armas y Cuerpos Nº 147 9