The Gilroy Garlic Festival. The Poway Chabad synagogue. The Charleston Emanuel church. The El Paso Walmart. One common denominator in these mass shootings and countless others? A perpetrator whose interactions in online white supremacist networks played a part in inciting, energizing, and detonating racial hatred into real violence, says UNLV sociologist Simon Gottschalk. Gottschalk has studied how interacting in online white supremacist networks can convert hateful words into real violence.

For many U.S. intelligence officials, memories of that 9/11 terrorist attacks remain fresh, searing, and personal. Still hanging over the entrance to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center is a sign that reads, “Today is September 12, 2001.” It’s a daily reminder of the agency’s determination to prevent future attacks—but also of the horrifying costs when intelligence agencies adapt too slowly to emerging threats. For a decade after the Soviet Union’s collapse, the CIA and the FBI were mired in Cold War structures, priorities, processes, and cultures even as the danger of terrorism grew. The shock of 9/11 finally forced a reckoning—one that led to a string of counterterrorism successes, from foiled plots to the operation against Osama bin Laden. But now, nearly two decades later, America’s 17 intelligence agencies need to reinvent themselves once more, this time in response to an unprecedented number of breakthrough technologies that are transforming societies, politics, commerce, and the very nature of international conflict.

For more than a year, European powers have dallied over the question of what to do with the tens of thousands of Islamic State (IS) fighters and adherents captured following the fall of the so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Now the U.S. decision to withdraw troops and Turkey’s subsequent invasion of northern Syria on 9 October means the West has lost the luxury of inaction.

The far right is beginning to dominate the terrorism stage in the Western world. It was responsible for every single extremism-related killing in the United States in 2018—including six mass-casualty incidents. Last year was the most violent in terms of U.S. terrorism since 1982. These networked adversaries, operating within a loose, leaderless ideological framework, are a different kind of terrorist. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s new Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism and Targeted Violence highlights this, noting the proliferation of perpetrators writing manifestos rather than being motivated by radicalizers or taking orders from commanders. Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware write for the Council of Foreign Relations that the Yom Kippur shooting in Halle, like Christchurch, represents the confluence of three significant trends in terrorism: a rising far right, the targeting of places of worship, and the use of social media and livestreams.

Most of the discussions that take place around the concept of disinformation–false information spread deliberately to deceive–typically focus on the role of nation-states like Russia and China. But violent non-state actors, including terrorist groups, rely on disinformation as well, and some groups have developed fairly sophisticated disinformation capabilities. The objectives of these non-state actors can vary but are almost always some combination of spreading fear and terror, recruiting new followers to the cause, radicalizing individuals, and confusing and distracting public safety officials in order to sap finite resources.

President Trump’s precipitous decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria has already had dramatic consequences. One of the questions Trump’s hasty Twitter announcement raises involves the fate of the thousands of ISIS fighters no in detention in Syria. The Kurdish SDF is currently holding more than 10,000 Islamic State fighters—including at least 8,000 Iraqis and Syrians and 2,000 foreign fighters—in overflowing temporary detention centers in northeastern Syria. The biggest camp, al-Hol, houses around 70,000 people related to ISIS fighters, including about 10,000 foreigners and 30,000 Islamic State loyalists. The SDF has already said that it was withdrawing its guards from the Islamic State detention centers and camps in order to deal with the Turkish invasion. On Sunday, nearly 900 ISIS followers have escaped from one of the camps. Emma Broches writes that as Turkey’s offensive continues, it’s useful to review what the future might hold for these prisoners. “If the security surrounding the detainees deteriorates, the Islamic State will likely exploit the situation and create a further opportunity for its ongoing resurgence.”

Nearly 40 victims of IRA violence have called on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to apologize for his support for Irish republicanism, accusing him of “giving succor” to terrorists. In an open letter to mark the 35th anniversary of the Brighton bombing, the families of the dead demand that he condemn the terrorist campaign waged by the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s. A report from Mainstream, a new campaign group against extremism in politics, also reveals evidence of Corbyn’s closeness to London Labour Briefing, which ran an infamous editorial after the Brighton attack claiming that “the British only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it.” The 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, during the Conservative Party conference, killed five people and injured thirty-one.

If he wants to upstage his predecessor, Donald Trump should take the necessary steps to close down the detention facility at Guantanamo. In the meantime, as long as the proceedings in the 9/11 case continue under [the newly appointed judge in the case, Air Force Col. Shane] Cohen, it’s clear he takes his responsibilities seriously. He opened the September 11 hearing by stating: “In this particular case, not only have I been asked to [ensure] a fair trial, but to sit in judgment in many instances of my own country and its actions. I get the weight of that decision. I get the weight of the impact of the decision that I’m making. Never underestimate the weight that I feel each and every day with the decisions that I make that impact the lives of people all over the world.”

The U.K. government’s independent advisor on extremism is calling for a complete overhaul of the government’s strategy – recommending a new taskforce led by the Home Secretary. The U.K. Commission for Countering Extremism on Monday, 7 October, published its findings and recommendations in a new report, Challenging Hateful Extremism.