Europeans Question if Terrorism Is Becoming a Fact of Life
Intelligence collection, monitoring of people with mental-health issues seen as keys to improving safety
First the massacre by truck in Nice, France, then an ax attack on a German train and now a shooting spree in Munich: Over the past 10 days, Western Europe has seen the calm of everyday life shattered by high-profile acts of violence.
The motives and circumstances of each attack were different but the string of violence has officials in the region asking if terrorism is becoming a fact of life that Europe must learn to accept.
The initial assessment by authorities is that Friday’s German attack was committed by Ali David Sonbody, a teenager who was believed to have been in psychiatric care and taken an interest in mass killers including Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing terrorist who killed 77 people in Norway exactly five years before.
If the assessment holds, the Munich attack would be an exception in a year when Islamic State has either directed or inspired most of the terror attacks in Europe.
U.S. and European officials said they were proceeding cautiously because the assessment could change in the days to come. But security officials said the recent string of attacks in both Europe and America show the importance of improving intelligence collection, and improving services and monitoring of people with mental-health issues.
“We are living in fear whether it is from terrorists or [mentally ill] people,” said a U.S. official in Europe. “Whether they are self-radicalized or mentally ill they can terrorize and change peoples lives. We have two problems here, we have to focus on both.”
European security officials say that better intelligence is far more effective at finding a terror network than lone wolf attackers. There is no way, officials say, to foresee and prevent an attack on undefended targets by someone who isn't known to police or intelligence services.
Hardening the kinds of soft targets struck this month in Europe would require a far greater presence of armed guards, security checks and barriers—steps European officials have so far been reluctant to take.
There is little doubt that the ever-expanding number of threats, not just from jihadist groups but also right wing extremists, have stretched European intelligence agencies and police departments.
Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union, this week released a report that noted that last year saw not just a sharp spike in arrests of Islamist radicals, but also an increase in arrests of terrorism suspects tied to ethno-nationalist groups in Europe.
“The general trend is the radicalization of everybody,” said a European security official. “I don’t know how we’re going to stop this.”
U.S. officials say the one thing European intelligence and law-enforcement officials could do quickly is find a mechanism with which to share more intelligence and law enforcement information, and share it more widely.
American officials have been pushing Europe for more intelligence sharing with the U.S.—not simply providing information on terrorists or potential terrorists who are intent on attacking the U.S. but a far broader swath of information.
U.S. officials believe if European officials would share a much greater percentage of information on people they are tracking would allow them to find connections between potentially radicalized individuals or others that pose a threat of conducting mass casualty attacks.
Even attackers who act alone often rely on outside help or contact people about their planned attack.
Some European officials are concerned about depending on American intelligence that many officials believe is overly intrusive.
Jerry Hendrix, a Washington-based security analyst at the Center for a New American Security, said the terror threat in Europe has laid out a stark choice for the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “if Europe is to avoid this being the new normal.”
“Europe, the EU, or NATO, either have to grow up, and grow together with more investment in intelligence and intelligence sharing amongst the member nations, or they are going to have to go back to an era of hard borders and low immigration,” Mr. Hendrix said.