Psychologists and behavioral scientists should be deployed more frequently in counterterrorism operations as the number of neurodivergent individuals investigated increases, a control dog has advised.
The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation told the Observer that assessing the threat of people with conditions such as autism is becoming an increasingly common challenge. Jonathan Hall QC said: “You are seeing a lot more neurodivergence and mental health in terrorist investigations, and that is also having an impact on eradication programs.
“It simply came to our notice then [counter-terrorism] officials who try to find out what a person’s behavior means and what might counteract it is strange not to have a psychologist present. “
In an interview to mark the evolving nature of the UK terrorist threat since the London Bridge and Borough Market attack five years ago, he said the shift to recognized terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda or the far right National Action to a model of resistance without leaders. it meant that a new kind of individual was being dragged into terrorism.
“Old-school terrorist groups like the IRA would not want to employ people with mental illness or neurodivergents; they would not want people who can disappoint the side, who can reveal secrets or be weak soldiers, “said Hall, who reports to the Interior Ministry on the operation and development of often controversial anti-terrorism legislative codes.
“This resistance without leaders, things of self-initiation, facilitated by the Internet, is a very deep distance from the groups,” he added.
Recent mass shootings in the United States, especially in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, Hall said, underscored the threat of lone attackers facing the United Kingdom.
While the Buffalo gunman was associated with right-wing terrorist ideology online and Uvalde’s killer was not, Hall said it was legitimate to wonder how different they were. “They both chose to become shooters, emulating a pattern of behavior that is widely glorified online. Whether you apply a terrorist label or not, they had the same capacity for violence.”
Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones were killed in the 2019 terrorist attack near London Bridge. Photo: Metropolitan Police / AFP / Getty Images
On Thursday, the teenage gunman accused of killing 10 people at gunpoint in a Buffalo supermarket was charged with domestic terrorism.
The UK security services are monitoring a decline in traditional ideological motives for potential terrorists, and raise questions about the extent to which the UK counter-terrorism strategy should be set in these definitions. “The difficult question is: do we care about ideology if it does not translate into violence? There may be problems with social cohesion and British values, but this is not terrorism. “
A historic overhaul of the government’s strategy against extremism, Prevent, is expected to promote a stronger focus on Islamism, a recommendation the security services point out is at odds with a documented increase in “mixed” ideologies. , unstable or unclear. “
In 2017, the UK terrorist threat seemed clearer when a series of attacks on Westminster Bridge, Manchester Arena, London Bridge, Finsbury Park Mosque and Parsons Green were acts of Islamist terrorism or right without complications.
Two years later, an attack near the London Bridge by Usman Khan, who had taken part in two programs to eradicate the Interior Ministry, started a debate on released terrorist offenders.
Hall acknowledged that no program “designed” to eradicate terrorists had yet been devised, and said successes or failures often depend on the personalities of the terrorist and those who try to deprogram them. “It’s impossible because you’re dealing with human nature. No one in the world has said that we now have peer-reviewed evidence of what works and are administering it,” said Hall, who interviewed government officials, ministers, security officials and intelligence. Intelligence and police to assess terrorism laws.
However, he warned that since Khan killed Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones while at a prisoner rehabilitation conference in November 2019, many counterterrorism officials have been wary of being “played” by those who seek to be uprooted while secretly housed. the intention to commit terrorists. “There’s a strong skepticism about being played these days, and that means it’s hard for people to prove he’s not a terrorist. It’s hard for individuals to re-melt into society in a good way.”