The intelligence services of Canada, New Zealand, the U. S., the U. K. and Australia often work together and may need to reconsider how they deal with threats to their common security
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 worshippers 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, South Carolina, in 2015. Tarrant also had white supremacist slogans scrawled on weapons, according to video he took.
The intelligence services of New Zealand and the United States — along with those in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia — enjoy a close working relationship. The so-called Five Eyes routinely share highly classified intelligence about al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, gleaned from their respective networks of surveillance systems and human spies.
Some experts say the allies need to think about how they can turn their resources toward threats that may reside within their borders but arguably threaten their common security.
“With its mix of global inspiration and local action, far-right extremism has inspired killings inside the U. S. and every one of the Five Eyes, ranging from mass shootings and bombings to assassinations of political leaders,” said P. W.
