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Lone extremists { February 24 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55157-2003Feb23.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55157-2003Feb23.html
FBI: Lone Extremists Could Be A Threat
Warning Given on Potential Attacks
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 24, 2003; Page A06
The FBI has warned that "lone extremists" unconnected to al Qaeda might become so enraged by world events, including a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq, that they could launch terrorist attacks against U.S. targets while acting alone or in small groups.
"Lone extremists represent an ongoing terrorist threat in the United States," the bureau said in a warning dispatched Thursday to local law enforcement and government officials. "Lone extremists may operate independently or on the fringes of established extremist groups, either alone or with one or two accomplices."
The FBI bulletin did not mention the possibility of a war in Iraq. But federal officials said anti-American sentiment around the world stemming from the looming conflict was one reason the bureau sent the message.
"The threat from single individuals sympathetic or affiliated with al Qaeda, acting without external support or surrounding conspiracies, is increasing," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said at a Senate intelligence committee hearing Feb. 11.
Federal investigators do not have any information suggesting that an attack by a single individual is imminent or that a plot is underway. But speaking generally, officials said they have concluded that such attacks are possible.
The bureau's bulletin, first described in yesterday's New York Times, said one example of a lone extremist carrying out a terror attack was Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian immigrant who shot and killed two people at the El Al airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport in July 2002 before being shot to death by a security guard.
FBI officials had not previously described the airport shooting as a terrorist attack. Officials concluded Hadayet had been driven to kill in part because of a hatred of Israelis, stoked by their nation's struggle with the Palestinians. Other triggers included the financial problems of his limousine service and his parents' poor health, officials said.
Immediately after the shooting, the FBI said Hadayet had no known ties to terrorist groups. Federal officials said later that Hadayet had stated in his asylum interview with U.S. immigration officials that the Egyptian government had falsely accused him of membership in Gama'a al-Islamiyya, a group the State Department designated as a terror organization in 1997.
Other examples of lone terrorists cited by the FBI were neo-Nazi or extremist antiabortion activists. One was Timothy J. McVeigh, who was executed two years ago for blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City and killing 168 people in 1995. Another was Paul J. Hill, an antiabortion activist who killed an abortion doctor and his assistant with a shotgun in Florida in 1994.
"Psychological abnormalities, as much as devotion to an ideology, drive lone extremists to commit violent acts," according to the FBI bulletin, intended to be distributed only to government and law enforcement officials. "Lone extremists who belong to conventional terrorist groups may commit acts without the prior knowledge of or approval from the group leadership.
"Initially some lone extremists may join an extremist group because they subscribe to its ideology," the bureau report said. "But eventually [they] leave because they do not possess even the most basic social skills required to interact within a group setting, or because the lone extremist believes that the group is not active or radical enough."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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