There has been a recent increase in funding for studies of terrorism and radicalization, and the FBI has produced a number of informative reports.Īnd Holder seems to understand clearly that lone wolves and small cells are an increasing threat. And the federal government recently has taken steps to address the terrorist threat more comprehensively, with Attorney General Eric Holder announcing the coming reconstitution of the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee. The temptation to focus on horrific groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State is wholly understandable.
As a result, then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized for it, and the DHS intelligence team that wrote it has since virtually disbanded. The 2009 report, which detailed the resurgence of the radical right in the aftermath of Obama’s 2008 election, was pilloried by pundits and politicians who wrongly saw it as an attack on all conservatives. (Editor’s note: In mid-April 2015, the SPLC became aware that the committee had met three times since June).īut it is also reflected in the way that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is charged with providing law enforcement information and analysis of all kinds of violent extremism, let its team devoted to non-Islamic domestic terrorism fall apart in the aftermath of a controversial leaked report. A stark example of that is the way the Justice Department has allowed its Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee to go into hibernation since that day. That was first apparent in the immediate aftermath of the Al Qaeda attacks, when almost all government resources were channeled toward battling foreign jihadists. Since 9/11, however, the government has focused very heavily on jihadists, sometimes to the exclusion of violence from various forms of domestic extremists. That fact is also apparent in the new SPLC study of the 2009-2015 period. A large number of independent studies have agreed that since the 9/11 mass murder, more people have been killed in America by non-Islamic domestic terrorists than jihadists. But that is not the only terrorist threat facing Americans today. And officials are now warning that the Islamic State, known for its barbaric beheadings and the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot, may be plotting to kidnap Americans abroad in a slew of other countries. 11, 2001, far more than the number killed by any other form of terrorism. Close to 3,000 Americans were murdered by Al Qaeda on Sept. There’s no question that the jihadist threat is a tremendous one. Although the meeting is ostensibly devoted to all forms of terrorism, there is a danger, in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, that Islamist terror will be the primary focus. Next week’s summit, to be hosted by President Obama, is meant to “better understand, identify, and prevent the cycle of radicalization to violence at home in the United States and abroad,” the White House said. Indeed, the lone wolf’s chief asset is the fact that no one else knows of his plans for violence and they are therefore exceedingly difficult to disrupt. Authorities have had far more success penetrating plots concocted by several people than individuals who act on their own. The long-term trend away from violence planned and committed by groups and toward lone wolf terrorism is a worrying one. A total of 90% of the incidents were the work of just one or two persons, the study found. It also shows that fully 74% of the more than 60 incidents examined were carried out, or planned, by a lone wolf, a single person operating entirely alone. 1, 2015, and includes violence from both the radical right and homegrown jihadists, finds that a domestic terrorist attack or foiled attack occurred, on average, every 34 days. The study, which covers the period between April 1, 2009, and Feb.
Our study also reveals that the vast majority of this violence is coming from “lone wolves” or “leaderless resistance” groups, most of the latter composed of just two men. As the White House prepares to host a major summit on countering violent extremism next Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center is releasing a new study showing that domestic terrorism and related radical violence - as opposed to terrorist attacks emanating from abroad - continue to plague the nation.
0 kommentar(er)
