Reconciling Lone-Wolf Terrorism

This session provided a comparative assessment of actor typologies in the U.S., focusing on predictive indicators, escalation pathways, and prevention strategies. It featured Dr. Ahmet Guler, Associate Teaching Professor at Pennsylvania State University and Dr. Ismail Onat, Associate professor at the University of Scranton; moderated by Dr. Omar Mohammed, Senior Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism.

On July 9, 2026, the Program on Extremism (PoE) at The George Washington University hosted a virtual webinar titled "Reconciling Lone-Wolf Terrorism: Solo, Lone, and Group Actor Tactics in the United States," as part of its Global Extremism Papers webinar series. The session was moderated by Dr. Omar Mohammed, Senior Research Fellow at PoE, and featured Dr. Ahmet Guler, Associate Teaching Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and Dr. Ismail Onat, Associate Professor at the University of Scranton. Guler and Onat discussed a study co-authored with Megan Dietz on solo actor terrorism in the United States.

Dr. Guler opened by framing the growing prevalence of lone actors as a departure from traditional, organizationally-driven terrorism. Because lone actors often act without formal membership or direct operational support, and increasingly radicalize through online environments, they present fewer visible warning signs than group-based actors, complicating prevention efforts for law enforcement.

Existing research has largely treated all solo perpetrators as a single category, obscuring meaningful differences in motivation and behavior. A central contribution of the paper is a distinction between solo Lone Actor Terrorism (LAT), individuals with no identifiable affiliation to an extremist organization, and solo Group-Affiliated Terrorism (GAT), individuals who act alone operationally but maintain a connection or affiliation to a broader movement.

Dr. Onat presented the study's methodology, drawing on the Global Terrorism Database. Using logistic regression, the authors found that solo LAT incidents were significantly associated with identity-based ideology, unsophisticated weapon types, abortion-related targets, a higher likelihood of claiming responsibility, and greater lethality. Solo GAT incidents, by contrast, were most strongly associated with target selection - particularly government institution - and a lower reliance on incendiary devices.

Dr. Onat explained that the distinction was not meant to erase connectivity, but to help researchers and practitioners avoid conflating operational affiliation with ideological alignment. Both authors emphasized that the Global Terrorism Database’s reliance on open-source, media-reported data is a limitation, since law enforcement and intelligence agencies may possess undisclosed information about an individual’s true connections.

When asked about policy implications, Dr. Guler and Dr. Onat pointed to claiming behavior and online “leakage” as the most actionable indicators for law enforcement, given that solo LAT actors are otherwise difficult to detect through traditional network-based counterterrorism approaches. Dr. Onat added that understanding the specific grievances driving unaffiliated actors, rather than applying a uniform threat model, should guide prevention strategy.

Asked how the findings might apply to the current threat environment, given that the dataset ends in 2020, both authors cautioned that they lacked updated data but speculated, based on recent reporting, that left-wing extremism among unaffiliated solo actors may be rising.