'Lone wolf' terrorists get what they want in global spotlight

By Carol J. Williams, LA Times
4:00 AM PDT, April 26, 2013

If late bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev attacked the Boston Marathon with an aim to draw attention to Muslim suffering in Chechnya, his ancestral homeland, he succeeded.

Or if, as alleged by some who knew him, he was angered by U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, those grievances have been widely aired, analyzed and discussed in every facet.

Tsarnaev’s name and that of his younger brother, Dzhokhar, have dominated headlines for more than a week, elevating the young men and whatever political motives they might have had to worldwide notoriety.

Counter-terrorism experts warn that intense media attention to the violent acts of “lone wolf” extremists threatens to encourage emulation. And some fear that the spotlight shined on Internet-based propaganda and bomb-building instruction is making a self-fulfilling prophecy of worries that do-it-yourself terrorism will spread.

(More here.)