A bombshell report just published by US think tank concluded that White supremacist groups have carried out a majority of “terrorist plots and attacks” this year.
The report, released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies with title: "The War Comes Home: The Evolution of Domestic Terrorism in the United States", echoed warnings made by the Department of Homeland Security this month.
The report of C.S.I.S., which describes itself as a nonpartisan center, found that white supremacist groups were responsible for 41 of 61 “terrorist plots and attacks” in the first eight months of this year, or 67 %.
The finding comes about two weeks after an annual assessment by the Department of Homeland Security warned that violent white supremacy was the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland” and that white supremacists were the most deadly among domestic terrorists in recent years.
In specific, the threats of violence were linked in part to this year’s mass protests and confrontations with protesters from a variety of factions.
The report said that “far-left and far-right violence was deeply intertwined” and that far-left groups, including anarchists and antifascist organizations, were responsible for 12 attacks and plots so far this year, or 20 percent of the total number, up from 8 percent in 2019.
The report highlighted several cases, including fatal shootings related to protests and the F.B.I.’s arrest of 13 men accused of plotting to kidnap the governor of Michigan, a Democrat. Those cases, along with President Donald Trump’s denunciations of left-wing activists and his refusal at a presidential debate to condemn an extremist right-wing group, have repeatedly raised fears this year of politically motivated violence.
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An armed demonstrator at a far-right group’s rally in Portland, Ore., in September. A think tank linked violence by far-right and far-left groups, in part, to this year’s unrest - AFP[/caption]
“Part of the issue we’re seeing is with people congregating, whether it’s for protests or other issues, in cities, is it has basically brought together extremist inpiduals from all sides in close proximity,” said Seth Jones, the director of the Transnational Threats Project at the center. “We’ve seen people on all sides armed, and it does raise concerns about escalation of violence in U.S. cities.”
The report also linked the threat of violence to the country’s charged politics, the coronavirus pandemic and its financial fallout.
It further warned that violence could rise after the presidential election because of increasing polarization, growing economic challenges, concerns about racial injustice and the persistence of coronavirus health risks.
Jones said the number of small, structured groups had increased over the last couple of years, as part of a broader increase in organized violence recently compared with the 1960s and ’70s, when attacks tended to be carried out by relatively decentralized extremists.
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