Spy agencies struggle to spot threats

Recent mass killings linked to lone, mentally ill attackers

WASHINGTON, July 24, (RTRS): Recent attacks on civilians in the US and Europe have exposed a gap in the intelligence community’s efforts to track suspected extremists and prevent mass killings, a half dozen American, British and French counterterrorism officials told Reuters.

The attacks have a common theme of being carried out by actors with an apparent history of mental illness - but few if any direct links to extremist groups, the officials told Reuters.

From both a legal and a strategic perspective, counterterrorism investigators globally are focused on plots by established violent groups with known ideologies, such as Islamic State. In the US, laws designed to protect citizens from intrusive government spying can limit investigations of individuals unless they have provable ties to foreign terror groups.

Counterterrorism officials told Reuters that the assailants in a recent spate of mass killings all had histories of apparent mental illness. They included the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida; the murder of a British parliamentarian in Northern England; the killings of police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Dallas, Texas; the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, France; and Friday’s mass shooting at a German shopping mall.

Remained

The counterterrorism officials in the US and Europe spoke on condition they and their organizations remained anonymous.

On Saturday, Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said the Munich mall gunman, identified in news reports as

a dozen rifles and six handguns from the home of a suburban Detroit man after a witness reported the man said he wanted to kill police officers, authorities said Saturday.

The man made the threat during a Ali David Sonboly, had undergone psychiatric treatment before the attack and was obsessed with mass killings. He had no criminal record, and had no known connections to extremist groups.

The German-Iranian 18-year-old, a local resident, shot and killed nine people after opening fire near Olympia shopping mall.

The tactics in such attacks contrast sharply with the attacks in Paris last November and Brussels in March, which were carried out by groups of militants with direct links to Islamic State.

Existing systems for collecting intelligence on extremists are not set up to identify individuals with a history of mental illness who come into contact with people or propaganda that could incite them to engage in violence, the intelligence officials told Reuters.

In the attack in Orlando, the perpetrator had viewed online jihadist propaganda, possibly produced by the Islamic State, the investigators said. But subsequent probes turned up no evidence the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, had any significant connections with Islamic State or any other militant organizations.

French investigators have arrested five alleged accomplices in the Nice attacks, but they have so far found no evidence that the attack was directed by foreign militants, according to a US counterterrorism official and a French official.

The case of Mateen perhaps best exemplifies the difficulty in detecting and preventing attacks by single perpetrators with a history of mental illness.

mental health discussion and has been committed to a mental health facility, Warren Police Commissioner Jere Green told The Detroit News.

“He commented during a session that he wanted to kill a bunch of police officers,” Federal officials have acknowledged that, for about 10 months in 2013 and 2014, the FBI investigated Mateen after he allegedly boasted to co-workers about supposed connections to al-Qaeda and other militant groups. While he was under investigation, the FBI placed Mateen’s name in three government databases, one of which is intended to trigger additional scrutiny if an individual passes through airport or border checkpoints.

Connections

But having found no evidence that Mateen had any real connections to militants, the FBI closed its investigation and his name was removed from the databases, two US intelligence officials told Reuters.

The US officials said those decisions were made to comply with laws designed to limit invasive government surveillance on all Americans. Neither the CIA nor National Counterterrorism Center are allowed to collect and retain information on American suspects who have no provable links to international terrorist groups, the two US officials said.

About three weeks before he carried out the massacre in Orlando, Mateen told an acquaintance that he was worn out from staying up all night to research psychiatric medication, the acquaintance, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. Mateen also told this person that he was worried that he had slipped into psychosis.

US officials also said they are investigating the role mental health issues may have played in the shooting of police in Baton Rouge and Dallas.

Green said. “The third party then reported it to police.” The tipster told police the man said he “wanted to do something big like in Dallas,” Green said.

The house in Center Line, north of Detroit, was searched Friday. Warren officers In both attacks, the shooters had displayed signs of apparent mental illness and extreme views before their rampages.

A lawyer who represented the Dallas shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, told the Associated Press than when Johnson was accused of sexual harassment by a female soldier, Johnson’s victim suggested in a court filing that Johnson should “receive mental help.”

Baton Rouge shooter Gavin Long told friends and relatives that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, a source involved in the investigation told CNN.

“When someone with mental health issues snaps, there usually is some external stimulus that also is involved and provides a sort of organizing framework for the violent act,” noted Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA analyst. “Identifying those who might commit such acts and doing something to prevent the attacks will always be very difficult.”

The shooting rampage on Dallas police officers, for instance, followed disputed shootings of black men by police officers in Minnesota and Louisiana. The Dallas suspect told police during a standoff that he had aimed to kill white police officers to avenge the deaths of black men shot by officers nationwide.

A soldier who served in Afghanistan with Johnson, however, said his Dallas attack reflected illness more than ideology.

“It’s not racism,” Heather Brooks wrote on Facebook, the Dallas Morning News reported. “It was mental sickness, unchecked and untreated.”

pulled over the man’s vehicle. He hasn’t been charged.

The case also is being investigated by Center Line police.

Many police agencies across the country are taking extra precautions after fatal shootings of officers.

In the Dallas attack this month, a gunman opened fire on officers working at a peaceful protest march, killing five and wounding nine others and two civilians before police killed him. (AP)

Internal reviews underway:

Two outside police departments are conducting investigations into the conduct of three Baltimore officers who have been cleared of criminal charges in the death of Freddie Gray.

Montgomery County police, with the help of Howard County officers, have launched reviews to determine whether Lt Brian Rice and Officers Caesar Goodson Jr and Edward Nero broke department policy during Gray’s April 2015 arrest, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Gray died a week after his neck was broken while he was handcuffed and shackled but left unrestrained in the back of a police van.

So far, trials for four of the six officers charged in his death have led to three acquittals and a mistrial. Internal investigations into the conduct of the other officers will begin after their trials conclude. (AP)