When ISIS’ Call to Arms Falls on the Ears of the Mentally Ill by Rukmini Callimachi and Catherine Porter – New York Times
After a 31-year-old man used a cargo truck to crush 86 people to death on the promenade in Nice, France, his distraught father rushed to tell reporters his son had once suffered a nervous breakdown.
When Omar Mateen used a Sig Sauer MCX semiautomatic rifle to gun down 49 people at an Orlando nightclub, relatives described him as bipolar.
And in Canada this week, after a 29-year-old man opened fire on a street full of cafes, hitting 15 people and killing two, his family issued a statement: Faisal Hussain, it said, had long struggled with mental illness.
The Islamic State offered another explanation: All three men, it claimed, were its soldiers…
Although in many instances the group has been hands-on, closely guiding those planning terrorist attacks via encrypted messages, it also employs another strategy. It broadcasts the seeds of propaganda as broadly as possible in the hope that they will take root, and that someone — anyone — will embrace violence in its name.
Researchers have found that a significant portion of the people who have carried out acts of terror in the Islamic State’s name suffered from mental disorders. Close to a third of the 76 individuals involved in 55 attacks cited in a 2017 study by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center were found to have a history of psychological instability…