Today's Headlines and Commenary

As the nation continues to grapple with tragedy in Orlando, FBI Director James Comey said to the Wall Street Journal that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was likely radicalized online and may have been inspired by overseas terrorist groups. The Journal also explains that Mateen had traveled to Saudi Arabia in both 2011 and 2012 to visit the holy site of Mecca. According to the Guardian, President Barack Obama independently told reporters that Mateen had been “inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the Internet.” But the Washington Post points out that Mateen may not have understood the nuances between a number of terrorist organizations including the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and Hezbollah.

A complicated picture continues to emerge regarding Mateen. The New York Times updates us on how Mateen first came to the FBI’s interest. The Times also interviews Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, who claimed that he was domestically abusive and may also have been gay. The Orlando Sentinel adds further clouds the picture in interviews with people who claim that Mateen had visited Pulse, the gay club where the massacre occurred, on numerous occasions and used a gay dating app before the attack. The Palm Beach Post interviews Mateen’s old police academy classmates for further corroboration, one of whom tells the Post that Mateen asked him on a date.

The Journal discloses that U.S. law enforcement agencies view lone wolfs such as Mateen whose self-radicalization is difficult to spot as the community’s greatest challenge. “This is exactly what we’ve been talking about,” FBI Director Comey declared, while defending his agency’s prior investigations into Mateen’s suspicious activities. The FBI had first investigated Mateen in 2013 after his colleagues flagged him for assertions boasting that he was in Hezbollah and had family members in al Qaeda. The agency investigated Mateen one further time after his name appeared during a probe of another American who became a suicide bomber in Syria. But Comey said of both instances, “I don’t see anything in reviewing our work that our agents should have done differently.” The Times links these comments with similar lamentations made in the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The Post goes a step further and counts Mateen as the third attacker — after perpetrators in the Garland, Texas and Boston Marathon incidents — who the FBI had scrutinized before launching a strike.

The Post’s Greg Miller writes that the attack in Orlando is an example of how the Islamic State has changed its recruitment strategy of Westerners by encouraging would-be fighters to stay in their communities rather than fight in Syria or Iraq. A spokesman for the Islamic State, Abu Muhammed al Adnani, said in a recording in May earmarked for foreign audiences, “the smallest action you can do in their heartland is better and more enduring to us than what you would if you were with us.” He added that those who currently live within the so-called caliphate “wish we were in your place to punish the crusaders day and night.” In a report that he delivered to the U.N. Security Council just three days before the Orlando shootings, the U.N. Undersecretary-General Jeffrey Feltman cited attacks in Paris and Brussels as evidence that “the core leadership of ISIL is seeking to elevate the role of its affiliates” at a time when the Islamic State is losing ground in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

Though the country continues to mourn Saturday’s heartbreaking attack, its political ramifications are already coming into focus. The New York Times discloses how Senate Democrats will push forward a bill sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that would ban the sale of guns to people who have appeared on law enforcement watch lists or have been linked by the Department of Justice with terrorist organizations. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more on a similar proposal by Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) that would prohibit anyone who has been charged under a misdemeanour hate crime law from buying or selling firearms.

Reuters reports that Hillary Clinton has called for an “intelligence surge” after the recent terrorist attack in Orlando. The presumptive Democratic nominee used a speech in Cleveland to signal her support for expanding online surveillance of potential terrorists. While the address lacked specifics, it did include her pledge to urge technology companies to partner with the intelligence community for counterterrorism purposes. Unlike Donald Trump, Clinton did not call for blocking online content and she rejected calls to target Muslim Americans as “dangerous.” The Hill and CNN also have stories on how the two major presidential candidates have reacted to the news in Orlando. David Rothkopf opines in Foreign Policy that Trump’s reaction to the Orlando attack threatens to undermine U.S. security and plays right into the Islamic State’s hands.

In another attack claimed by the Islamic State, a man stabbed a police captain and his companion to death outside their home in a village near Paris. The attacker, Larossi Abballa, was killed by elite police forces, who stormed the home and saved the couple’s 3-year-old son, according to the New York Times. Abballa was sentenced to prison in 2013 for involvement in a group planning terrorist activities, but was released inexplicably after the trial. President Francois Hollande labeled the attack “indisputably a terrorist incident.”

Closer to home, the Post reveals that Russian government hackers infiltrated the computer network systems of the Democratic National Committee. The attack enabled Moscow to access the DNC’s entire database of opposition research on Trump. DNC and security officials both admitted that the hackers were even able to read all email and chat traffic. Intelligence analysts said the attack is not particularly surprising and ought to be expected as a critical component of modern-day espionage. Robert Deitz, former senior counsel for the CIA, said, “The purpose of such intelligence gathering is to understand the target’s proclivities.” He speculated that the Russian government could study Trump’s foreign investments as a window into identifying his blind spots.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced that U.S. Apache helicopter gunships have been used in combat for the first time as part of the United States’ support of Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State outside Mosul, one of the Islamic State’s largest strongholds in Iraq. This development comes at a time in which Iraqi forces are making modest gains into Fallujah. Amid the fighting, thousands of civilians are fleeing Fallujah, an opportunity ISIS is attempting to exploit: according to Al Jazeera, over 500 ISIS members have been arrested while blending in with civilians in an attempt to escape. On a broader, more analytical level, War on the Rocks’ Clint Watts provides a deep examination of which Islamic State affiliates will rise and fall in coming years, considering each affiliate's current construct, bond with the Islamic State, interests and long-term outlook, to argue that the Islamic State’s endurance beyond Iraq and Syria remains limited.

The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, announced that the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the Mediterranean late on Monday. The Eisenhower will be relieving the USS Harry S. Truman and then continuing on to the Gulf to participate in U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria. The move, which, according to the Navy, sends “a strong message of support to our allies and partners in Europe,” comes amid concern over Russia’s maritime expansion and NATO’s military exercises across eastern Europe and Turkey.

A suspected U.S. drone strike killed 3 al Qaeda fighters near the town of Haban, according to Yemeni security officials. The airstrike occurred overnight, as the three fighters were traveling in their vehicles. The also reported that approximately 150 al Qaeda suspects were detained in a raid by troops from the United Arab Emirates and others in the Saudi-led coalition, a claim supported by activists close to al Qaeda who said the men were being tortured in prisons run by Emirati forces. Meanwhile, the UAE reported that a pilot and co-pilot were killed in a military helicopter crash, a day after a similar crash killed two other Emirati pilots. No details regarding the location or the cause of the crash were released.

New information in the probing of the crash of of EgyptAir Flight 804 suggests that the plane was likely not brought down by a sudden in-air explosion. Examining the radar findings, Egyptian officials claim the plane veered off course before plunging into the sea, ruling out the possibility that the plane was torn apart in a midair explosion. Such findings, however, shed little light on whether the plane’s crash was due to an aircraft malfunction, a pilot command or hostile action, leaving investigators still locked in a race against time for information, with the beacons on the black boxes required to last for 30 days.

Pakistan’s military reports that a Pakistani army officer died Tuesday in a border clash with Afghan forces, intensifying tensions between the neighbors. The clash originally broke out on Sunday over the construction of a new border post on the Pakistani side. Relations between the two sides have been strained for months, however, with Afghanistan claiming that Pakistan has been harboring militants—including the Haqqani network and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban—and Pakistan denying such claims, insisting its new border post is but a means of stopping militants from crossing the border. Security officials report that nine Pakistani and six Afghan troops have been wounded in the fighting.

Philippines President Benigno Aquino confirmed the murder of Canadian Robert Hall by Abu Sayyaf militants, condemning it as “brutal and senseless.” Mr. Hall was kidnapped from a marina near the city of Davao in September, along with three others from Canada, the Philippines and Norway. This news comes after the April murder of John Ridsdel, also a Canadian, who was killed by Abu Sayyaf after their multi-million dollar ransom demand expired.

The Journal tells us that North Korean hackers have stolen wing designs for a U.S. jet fighter and photographs of parts of spy planes from a South Korean company. This development is the latest in a series of alleged cyberattacks by Pyongyang. According to the Korean National Police Agency, over 40,000 documents were stolen, including wing designs for F-15 fighter jets, though a South Korean military official claimed the documents did not include any sensitive information, such as designs for F-15 engines or electronic systems, and will “likely have a negligible impact on national security.”

Military spending from European countries and Canada is set to rise 1.5%, an increase of 3 billion dollars, according to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Mr. Stoltenberg lauded this increase as “real progress” after years of “long decline in military spending across European allies and Canada” dating back to the end of the Cold War. NATO countries have faced withering criticism in recent years that they have not spent enough on defense.

U.S. District Judge Richard Jones issued a temporary restraining order to block Seattle from releasing information about surveillance cameras placed in the city by the FBI. According to the Associated Press, the city had planned to disclose information pursuant to public record requests until the Justice Department sued, concerned that such a disclosure could jeopardize ongoing investigations by tipping off subjects that they are being monitored. Judge Jones indicated that the Justice Department has a strong likelihood of winning the case, as the city’s move for disclosure appears to be in violation both with the state’s Public Records Act and the FBI’s confidentiality agreement with the city and federal law enforcement.

ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare

Ben Wittes and Jack Goldsmith announced the latest in Lawfare’s series of book soirees, in which Ben will interview Fred Kaplan about his new book, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War. Find your invitation to the event here.

As prelude to the event, John Sipher reviewed Kaplan’s Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, which explores the history of the U.S. government's secret use of cyber spying and aggressive computer attacks.

Cody Poplin compiled The Week That Will Be, summarizing Lawfare’s upcoming event announcements.

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