Lone wolf attacks are becoming more common, signal to a new emerging threat.
Opening remarks by Central Intelligence Agency Director John O. Brennan as prepared for delivery at the Council on Foreign Relations on March 13, 2015:
“Good afternoon everyone. Thank you, Charlie [Rose], for your introduction and for moderating today’s discussion. I also want to thank the Council on Foreign Relations and especially Richard [Haass] for inviting me to be here today.
Over the past many months, CIA has been in the news for a variety of reasons, most of them unrelated to the many challenges as well as the opportunities that lie ahead of us on the global stage.
So I would like to begin with a snapshot of some of the international developments and trends that are of greatest concern to the CIA and talk to you about how we are tackling these challenges.
I thought I would take some time today to focus in particular on the importance of our work with foreign partners in enhancing global security.
These relationships are founded on discretion, so we don’t talk about them much, but they play an essential role in our efforts to collect relevant and impactful intelligence, to provide insightful analysis, and to conduct effective covert action as directed by the President.
Last month, an extremist gunned down a film director at a café in Copenhagen, made his way across town, and then shot and killed a security guard at a synagogue. Later the same day, the terrorist group ISIL released a video showing the horrific execution of Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya.
The previous month, in a span of less than 24 hours, we saw a savage attack on the staff of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in France; we saw a car bomb kill dozens at a police academy in Yemen; and we received reports that the extremist group Boko Haram had carried out yet another massacre in Nigeria claiming an untold number of innocent lives.
And in December, gunmen in Pakistan opened fire on school children in an attack that, even by the appalling standards of the Pakistani Taliban, was shocking in its moral depravity.
These attacks underscore a disturbing trend that we have been monitoring for some time: the emergence of a terrorist threat that is increasingly decentralized, difficult to track, and difficult to thwart…”
Source: CIA
See related video: ISIS Urging ‘Lone Wolves’ to Launch Attacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFUGZro4dGY
See video: ISIS Calls For Lone Wolf Attack on Times Square https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-jUWNChFjg
See video: What threat do ‘lone wolf’ terrorists pose? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LatkyKyv0hc