Composite Violent Extremism: Conceptualizing Attackers Who Increasingly Challenge Traditional Categories of Terrorism

Excerpt

Counterterrorism practitioners have increasingly drawn attention to acts of violent extremism which, in the words of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray, “don’t fit into nice, neat ideological buckets.”¹ In response to an apparent rise in such incidents, governments have begun expanding the scope of counterterrorism and prevention efforts. Multiple new initiatives, particularly in countries belonging to the Five Eyes intelligence sharing arrangement, seek to address violent extremist attacks carried out by individuals who appear to be motivated by an amalgamation of disparate beliefs, interests, and grievances. This is evident, for example, in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s 2019 Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence, the United Kingdom Prevent Program’s mixed, unstable, and unclear classification established in 2018, and the proliferation of fixated threat assessment centers as part of police counterterrorism functions within Australia since 2017.²

FBI director Wray described this phenomenon as “salad bar” extremism, a phenomenon in which individuals are seemingly motivated by a “weird hodgepodge blend of ideologies.”³ His recent testimony on the issue highlights the fundamental challenges of “trying to unpack what are often sort of incoherent belief systems, combined with kind of personal grievances.”⁴ Indeed, cases that fit the so-called salad bar paradigm (for which we will offer an alternative terminology shortly) are challenging to conceptualize and categorize in large part because it can be difficult to discern motives amid complex interplays of disparate beliefs, interests, prejudices, grievances, and personal risk factors.

1. Christopher Wray, “Hearing on Global Threats,” testimony before House Select Intelligence Committee, April 15, 2021.
2. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence (September 2019); United Kingdom Home Office, “User Guide to: Individuals Referred to and Supported Through the Prevent Programme, England and Wales,” November 18, 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/user-guid e-to-individuals-referred-to-and-supported-through-the-prevent-programme-england-andwales/user-guide-to-individuals-referred-to-and-supported-through-the-prevent-programme-england-and-wales; Paul Farrell, “NSW Police Establish ‘Fixated Persons’ Unit to Help Counter Lone Wolf Terror Attacks,” The Guardian (London), April 26, 2017; John Silvester, “How police prevent obsessives, pathologically wronged from doing harm”, The Age (Melbourne), March 12, 2021.
3. A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2023 Funding Request for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Before Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, 117th Cong. (2022) (statement of Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation); Hearing on Global Threats, Before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, 116th Cong. (2020) (statement of Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation).
4. A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2023 Funding Request for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.