Analysis of Competing Hypothesis for Investigating Lone Wolf Terrorist

One of the most unpredictable forms of terrorism acts are those committed by a single individual, a so-called "lone wolf terrorist". The most difficult part in detecting a lone wolf is that they can come in any size, shape, and ethnicity and represent any ideology. However, there are some characteristic similarities that many lone wolves share. In this paper we identify three different areas where similarities among lone wolves can be found: the background and their behavior, the radicalization process and the terrorist planning cycle. We use an adoption of the analysis of competing hypotheses method where we introduce the notion of template hypotheses. A template hypotheses aims to capture similarities between different lone wolf cases. The hypotheses are continuously developed and cultivated into more detailed hypotheses that are specific for each individual. We outline how a computer-support tool for investigating lone wolf terrorists using this method could be implemented.