The Lone wolf is not always a lonely enthusiast planning a catastrophe all by himself due to lack of communication or leadership skills. There are cases when such lone wolf is rather a strategic entrepreneur.
They can be too ambitious to take the stairs starting from an operator to administrator through experience. They want to take a high jump and bypass all these intermediaries.
Being a lone wolf offers them an immunity to shield themselves from the scrutiny of the local intelligence network. In large groups it is hard to put a vigil on members.
The larger the group, the larger the set of informants.
A lone wolf can execute his plans without informing other members who can defect or betray. But lack of assistants also mean the bulk of task to be handled alone and those with such capability can establish themselves to be terror entrepreneur.
A successful lone wolf himself has knowledge of where to procure arms, what are the security loopholes of the target area etc. Therefore such lone wolves are freelance super-operators.
Once they conduct a successful attack or even can show proof that they have obtained the potential to conduct the attack, they are ready to approach the terror conglomerates for seed or series funding.
Most of the prominent terrorist organizations are outsourcing their operations now a days and are open to proposal of freelance contracts or affiliates.
Some of such lone wolves who love to work solo forever, believe in getting freelance contracts. Others with leadership skills and a significant follower base ask for affiliation and become the leader of the local cell (sleeper or active).
For example, Hamas and Hezbollah mostly operate through ideological freelancers in Europe and South America against the Jewish diaspora and Israeli embassies. However these organizations have unnamed affiliate groups who are mainly criminal gangs operating out of Muslim ghettos in France and Germany.
Mohammed Faizan of Khandwa Conspiracy Case was a lone wolf who had received seed funding from SIMI despite aiming for Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind.
In the bottomline, the definition and modus operandi of the lone wolf is constantly evolving.
