How law enforcement is dealing with lone-wolf terror threat in wake of Colorado attack
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The lone wolf is one of the biggest terrorist threats to our safety since 9/11, and as the attacks so far this year have shown us, they can happen anywhere.
In just the past two months, a man set fire to the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania after police say he didn't like the elected leader's stance on the war in Gaza.
A couple who worked for the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., was shot to death before the gunman allegedly shouted "free Palestine."
Now in Colorado, the suspect was heard shouting the same thing as investigators say he threw Molotov cocktails into the crowd.
Mohammed Soliman allegedly told police he wanted "to kill all Zionist people."
Similar crimes have happened in the Tri-State area.
In October of 2017, a man drove a rental truck onto the bike path along the West Side Highway, killing eight people.
Just two months later, a man detonated a pipe bomb in the subway injuring five people.,
Soliman hasn't been tied to any groups, so far, but retired senior Secret Service agent Donald Mihalek says he wouldn't be surprised if the suspect acted alone.
When asked why he thinks we're seeing more individuals carry out attacks as opposed to groups, Mihalek said, "groups tend to be easier to find, identity and address than a lone individuals who's working, for a lack of a better term, in a basement."
The 45-year-old suspect told investigators he researched online how to make the Molotov cocktails.
"The network to radicalize people wasn't as sophisticated as it is now with the internet and the dark web," Mihalek said.
According to the Intitute for Economics and Peace, not only is lone-wolf terrorism increasing, but it's more common than attacks carried out by groups.
It found individuals carried out 93% of fatal terrorist attacks in the west, over the past five years.
"If you're American these days and you're not alert and paying attention to what's going on around you, then you're probably part of the problem," Mihalek said.
He says that whether it's a small festival or a large parade, all events need to be analyzed for security threats, no matter what it is.
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