Understanding stochastic violence
On November 2 at 8:00 pm, Kujtim Fejzullai opened fire on civilians in Vienna, Austria, killing four and wounding two dozen more before being killed himself. Born in Austria and of Albanian heritage, Fejzullai became known to Austrian counterterrorism officials when he attempted to cross the Turkish border to join ISIS in Syria, a crime for which he served eight months in prison. As far as we know, Fejzullai never actually made contact with ISIS officials; he seems to have planned and carried out his terror attack completely on his own. He declared his allegiance to ISIS on social media before launching his attack. ISIS acknowledged that it was surprised by the attack, calling Fejzullai a “soldier of the caliphate” – a phrase normally reserved for previously unknown sympathizers who carry out a violent act. Thus, it appears that very little could have been done to prevent this radicalized individual, acting alone but inspired by ISIS, from carrying out his deadly rampage.
Welcome to the fourth wave of global jihad.
As my new book Global Jihad » details, there have been four distinct waves of global jihad. The most recent fourth wave is part of the broader phenomenon of stochastic violence: i.e. violence that is inspired and social media driven. Following the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Abu Musab al-Suri feared for the future of armed jihad itself. A committed jihadi, Suri had fought in the first round of the Syrian civil war in the early 1980s, advised the GIA in Algeria’s bloody civil war in the 1990s, and likely had a hand in some of Europe’s most notorious acts of terror. Suri wanted to create a jihadi system that could withstand the constant crush of security and military forces, built on emerging internet technologies, and held together by an always evolving wiki-narrative that made sense of all the disparate acts of jihadi violence. Nizam, la tanzim he declared: “a system, not an organization.” Jihadi organizations were too easily defeated, but a networked system that linked together individuals and small groups from around the world was a durable form of jihadi action. It required, at its center, acts of jihad fardi, or personal jihad: attacks by ‘lone wolves’ or small groups.
The idea of stochastic terror was first launched by American neo-Nazis, and only made possible by the advent of the internet and social media.