Making sense of 'lone-wolf' attackers in the wake of Sydney café siege

Man Haron Monis acted alone in the Sydney hostage-taking that terrorized his victims. He was what they call a Lone Wolf. Today we wanted to look at the difference in the psychology of the Lone Wolf and those who commit acts of terror in an organized group. Little did we know that by morning the world would be confronted by a chilling example of an organized attack on a school in Pakistan.

As you've been hearing on the news, classrooms of students have been killed and injured in an attack on an army run public school in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Qasim Nauman is a Pakistani reporter for Global Radio News.

The Pakistani militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban has admitted it sent six gunmen in suicide vests to attack the school.

In contrast, there are the actions of this one man.

This pen is my gun. And these words are my bullets. I'll fight with these weapons against oppression, to promote peace.Man Haron Monis

For years, Man Haron Monis presented himself as a man of peace, vowing to wage his war using words only. Monday morning he strode into a Sydney, Australia cafe with a very real gun, and started taking hostages. Two hostages and the gunman were killed in that incident.

Now as the world reels over the attack in Pakistan today, the search is on in Sydney for clues on what drove Man Haron Manis. Lawyer Manny Conditsis once represented him against charges of sexual assault and accessory to murder. He recalls his client as a troubled man.

His ideology is just so strong and so powerful that it clouds his vision for common sense and objectiveness. This is a one-off random individual. It's not a concerted terrorism event. It's a damaged-goods individual that's done something quite outrageous. Manny Conditsis, Lawyer who represented Man Haron Monis

Troubled, deeply ideological and a "lone wolf." Those are a few aspects of the picture emerging so far of Man Haron Monis. And as a so-called "lone wolf," he's hardly alone.

Mark Hamm is a criminologist at Indiana State University. He has studied 98 cases of "Lone Wolves" in the U.S. over decades. Mark Hamm was in Bloomington, Indiana.

For Canadians, confronting extremism has become something of a theme this year -- from the hit-and-run attack on two soldiers in Quebec, to stories of young Canadians feeling the pull abroad to join the fight with I.S.I.S.

And of course, there was the attack in the heart of the nation's capital by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. It scarred Parliament Hill and left Corporal Nathan Cirillo dead as well as the shooter himself.

It also led the gunman's mother, Susan Bibeau, to release a written statement in the aftermath of those events. She wrote that --- quote -- "mental illness is at the centre of this tragedy." She called the shooting "the last desperate act of a person not well in his mind," adding she did not believe her son was driven by a -- quote -- "grand ideology."

Jocelyn Bélanger warns against characterizing attackers like Bibeau in such terms. He is an assistant professor of psychology at Université du Québec à Montréal.

This segment was produced by The Current's Kristin Nelson and Gord Westmacott.