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Terrorism involves committing violent acts for political, religious or ideological reasons. Although there are different models to account for the forces and progression toward becoming actively a terrorist for neuro-typical individuals, someone with autism being involved in terrorism is rare and not well understood. As a result, the prevalence of individuals with autism being attracted or recruited by terror organizations is unknown. As a result, the examination of any connection between terrorism and individuals with autism is in its infancy. A likely starting point may involve examining different levels of commitment to a terrorist cause, and investigate whether a similar means of understanding the level of involvement also exists for individuals with autism. In addition, it would also be important to ascertain if similar psychological and social dynamics are involved in moving one toward becoming more active and fighting for a terrorist organization.
Essentially, terrorism can be committed as part of an organized group or alone. Typically, terrorism is characterized and understood as a group phenomenon (Nesser, 2012). Relatively recently, there has been the emergence of a new type of terrorist threat – the “lone wolf” terrorist (Barnes, 2012). In the peer-reviewed literature, terrorist attacks by single actors are typically represented as “lone wolf terrorism” (Spaaij, 2012), “leaderless resistance” (Kaplan, 1997), “solo terrorism” (CTA, 2011), “individual terrorism” (Iviansky, 1977) and “freelance terrorism” (Kushner, 2003).
In regard to acts committed by individuals with autism, there have been rare reports of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) associating with terrorist activities or causes. Dr Zainab Al-Attar (2016a, b) has reported that there is no substantial link between ASD and terrorism. However, when someone with an ASD does associate with extremists or terrorists, she highlighted that circumscribed interests, deficits in central coherence and myopia, and even sensory issues would need to be functionally linked “to the offense trajectory and modus operandi” that would lead one to become involved with terrorists. In the only case study linking an ASD with extremism, Palermo (2013) presented a case study of a youngster with Asperger’s syndrome who because of his “lack of empathy, social dysfunction, and schizoid nature of his temperament … combined with his extremes of knowledge, gave him access to a subculture of anger and violence,” namely, being approached by Storm...