New Zealand Attack Exposes How Little US and Allies Share Intelligence on Domestic Terrorism Threats by Shane Harris – Washington Post
The United States and its closest allies have spent nearly two decades building an elaborate system to share intelligence about international terrorist groups, and it has become a key pillar of a global effort to thwart attacks.
But there’s no comparable arrangement for sharing intelligence about domestic terrorist organizations, including right-wing extremists like the one suspected in the killing of 49 worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, according to current and former national security officials and counterterrorism experts.
Governments generally see nationalist extremist groups as a problem for domestic law enforcement and security agencies to confront. In the United States, that responsibility falls principally to the FBI.
But increasingly, nationalist groups in different countries are drawing inspiration from each other, uniting in common cause via social media, experts said. Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the 28-year-old suspected gunman in Christchurch, posted a manifesto full of rage on Twitter in which he cited other right-wing extremists as his inspiration, among them Dylann Roof, who killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. Tarrant also had white supremacist slogans scrawled on weapons, according to video he took…