Last Friday, Germany suffered its second violent attack in less than a week when a lone man — a German citizen of Iranian origin — shot dead nine persons, and injured many more, outside a well-known shopping mall in Munich, before shooting himself in the head in a side street nearby. But it is too early to classify the Munich attack as an instance of terrorist violence, as generally understood, as many have done, although Internet sites associated with Islamic State or Daesh have been quick to applaud the attack, implying that the gunman was their “soldier”.
Being originally from Iran, meaning a Shia Muslim, the 18-year-old who perpetrated the violence is extremely unlikely to have been an adherent of Daesh, a fundamentalist Sunni outfit of the Tafriki variety and at war with the Shias. Chances are the teenager was in need of psychiatric help. Western security experts, especially, have of late spoken of “lone wolf” attacks without adequate explanation or justification, in the process creating the scare that the friendly Muslim in the street may be a would-be assassin.
A more plausible approach, which some are advancing, is to suggest that there cannot be “lone wolf” terrorist attacks in this world of psy-war and social media — combat in which brainwashing of even unknown individuals through invidious propaganda is rampant. Terrorist violence is a serious enough problem, and to count every act of mass murder in that analytical group is to score an own goal.
