APD REVIEW | Britain: Under shadow of native lone wolfs

By APD writer Wang Peng

Very unfortunately, the Great Britain is in great danger.

Now the identity of the terrorist is clear: Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old born in Manchester to parents of Libyan descent, and a former University of Salford student. Before he came to university, he attended Burnage Academy for Boys in Manchester from 2009 to 2011.

Whether Salman Abedi took this dead attack alone or supported by a group of terrorists is still in inquiry process, as the local police reported, who have arrested three other suspects in south Manchester on Wednesday, as well as Abedi’s older brother Ismael on Tuesday in connection with the attack. A number of security experts infer it is quite possible that Salman Abedi conducted this attack by himself; in other words, this case is more likely to be a ‘lone wolf’ attack.

Manchester

The “lone wolf” attack is not new in current Europe. Normally, this kind of action is not guided or supported by the established terrorist organization, such as IS or al-Qaeda, but totally designed, prepared and conducted by individual terrorist (or with a very limited number of confederates).

Though they prepare and commit violent acts alone, outside of any command structure and without material assistance from any group, they are still influenced, encouraged or motivated by the ideology and beliefs of particular spiritual masters (e.g. or terrorist groups such as IS), and hence act in support of such a person or group.

As anti-terrorism experts estimate, those attacks have been increasing in number in recent years. As a result, sometimes it is difficult for police to distinguish whether a terrorist has received outside instructions or assistance and what appears to be a “lone wolf” may have been carefully orchestrated from outside actually. This major feature offers “lone wolf” raiders strong capabilities of anti-reconnaissance.

“Local and native” is another major characteristic of this case, which has increased the internal conflicts and division in the European society dramatically. For a long time, the UK and other western countries are proud of their democratic framework, political institutions, multiculturalism and the comprehensibility of different races or ethnic groups.

However, those attacks were launched by people (e.g. Salman Abedi) who are ‘foreigners’ or the first-generation immigrants, but are born, raised, educated in Britain or other European countries. ‘Why do they hate us ?! We are good neighbors at the day time, but he just attacked us at night!’ ‘He (Salman Abedi) had difficulties in adjusting to European lifestyle’, as his former neighbor commented sadly.

This fact really makes the local British and European civilians sad, and the government into the trap of a terrible dilemma. On the one hand, if May and other European leaders follow the right wing’s argument (some are racialists, extremists, or populism-supporters) to employ much more harsh, conservative, and tough policies against the young generation from particular ethnic groups, make strict law to ban immigrants or refugees from particular religious groups, and constrain the entry from particular regions of the world (like what Trump did): first, no one can guarantee all those measures make efforts; second, this anti-Muslim attitude will undoubtedly intrigue more suicide bombs and lone wolf attacks, with or without the calling from IS or other spiritual masters.

However, on the other hand, if the Europeans remain the same policy, or even take a further step to practice the established political correctness such as “multiculturalism”, all refugees welcome unconditionally, whether this “sun-shining” payment can win the positive return is still questionable. If no, the right side will win more votes and turn the table round.

Frankly speaking, this dilemma has been a cancer of not only the “British patient”, but also the “European patient” or “western patient”. Their society is actually neither so comprehensive/open minded as they always claimed to accommodate the new comers and their marginalized descendants to ‘adjust to European lifestyle’, nor so powerful and strong to press the internal turmoil or domestic rebellions that keep the social order and public security.

Dr. Wang Peng, Research Fellow at Charhar Institute, Lecturer at the China Institute of Fudan University.