Counterterrorism Blog

Big time terrorism plots are always big news whereas more subtle and interesting trends are often recorded as footnotes. One such footnote occurred over Christmas 2007 in the British city of Birmingham. A 38-year-old man, Hassan Muhammed Sabri Al Tabbakh of Syrian origin was arrested by local police on terrorism charges. He is accused of stockpiling chemicals and information on how to construct a bomb. He appears to have acted alone and this continues to be a conspiracy of one. Further, details may be forthcoming during the trial (now scheduled for May 16 at Birmingham Crown Court) but this little noted case has a number of features, which are -- noteworthy.

Bombers acting alone are a nightmare scenario for security services. Traditionally they are the hardest targets to track and catch. America had the Unabomber and the UK has had David Copeland a far-right extremist who managed to plant three bombs around London in 1999 before being captured. Copeland was self-radicalized and arguably mentally ill but managed to evade capture long enough to do significant damage to the capital. The fact that Tabbakh was apprehended before acting is therefore, to be commended as lone-bombers are usually the hardest targets of all to investigate and it clearly speaks to the UK’s enhanced ability to track the acquisition of dangerous information or materials and/or an improvement in local intelligence resources following regional reorganization.

To date, there hasn’t been a prominent jihadi ‘lone-wolf’ attacker in a western country and if this case proves to be the recorded first it will be an interesting precedent to examine. It had seemed likely, that ‘lone wolf’ bombers would become more prevalent in an era where you can ‘self-radicalize’ on the Internet, but to date this has not been the case. Acting as a lone terrorist continues to be an unusual phenomenon.

There do however, remain a number of curious unknowns about this case. Tabbakh’s age at 38 is past the point when most terrorists would be expected to be working on their first attack. The Syrian connection is also curious as it is out of the norm for the U.K. and the lack of publicity surrounding the case is also unusual, although legally proper. If more information is revealed in this case it will be interesting to view how and if local disaffection connects to international causes or perhaps how sometimes, grand theories of networks and national security collapse down to a disaffected man in a small apartment in a regional city. The self-radicalized lone-bomber continues to be a frightening prospect, whether or not Hassan Tabbakh is shown to be part of this disturbing group. The approaching trial may be worth watching.