Texas incident fuels concern about lone-wolf terror attacks
NEW YORK — The attempted attack on a provocative cartoon contest in Texas appears to reflect a scenario that has long troubled national security officials: a do-it-yourself terror plot, inspired by the Islamic State extremist group and facilitated through the ease of social media.
Trying to gauge which individuals in the United States pose such threats — and how vigorously they should be monitored — is a daunting challenge for counterterrorism agencies. Some experts caution that a limited number of small-scale attacks are likely to continue.
Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said federal authorities are aware of “thousands” of potential extremists living in the U.S., only a small portion of whom are under active surveillance.
Concerns have been intensifying since the rise of Islamic State group and were heightened this week after two gunmen were shot dead while trying to attack the event in Garland, Texas, that featured cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the men, 31-year-old Elton Simpson of Phoenix, was arrested in 2010 after being the focus of a four-year terror investigation; investigators are trying to determine the extent of any terror-related ties involving him or his accomplice, Nadir Soofi.
At the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that intelligence officials would be investigating Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for the incident.
Baltimore mayor softens tone and finds wide support
BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s mayor was emphatic last week: She did not want federal oversight of her police department.
“Nobody wants the Department of Justice to come in here and take over our city,” Stephanie Rawlings-Blake declared as the National Guard enforced a 10 p.m. curfew.
But it was hard to find any opposition Wednesday after she softened her tone and asked the U.S. Justice Department to launch a broad civil rights investigation that could eventually force the city to make changes under the oversight of an outside monitor.
The Democratic mayor now says she’ll accept outside intervention to rebuild public trust in a city torn by riots over the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury in police custody.
“I am determined not to allow a small handful of bad actors to tarnish the reputation of the overwhelming majority of police officers who are acting with honor and distinction,” she wrote in a letter to the new U.S. attorney general, Loretta Lynch.
Germanwings co-pilot practiced plane descents just hours before deadly crash
PARIS — The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 appears to have practiced sending the jetliner into a deadly descent on another flight, just two hours before he intentionally crashed it into the French Alps, investigators said Wednesday.
The revelation appeared to support the theory that the Germanwings crash was not only deliberate but premeditated. It came in a 30-page interim report from the French accident investigation agency BEA.
Authorities are still puzzling over why Andreas Lubitz, who had suffered from suicidal tendencies and depression in the past, locked the captain out of the cockpit on March 24 and sent the Airbus A320 hurtling into a mountain, killing all 150 people on board.
Lubitz seemed to be toying with the airplane’s settings on the earlier flight from Duesseldorf to Barcelona, programming it for a sharp descent multiple times in a 4 1/2-minute period while the pilot was out of the cockpit before resetting the controls, the report said. Unlike the later flight, he did not lock the pilot out of the cockpit.
The plane’s “selected altitude” changed repeatedly and several times was set as low as 100 feet above sea level. The report says Lubitz also put the engines on idle, which gives the plane the ability to quickly descend.
By wire sources