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US officials and official reports warned of the risk of violence carried out by militants of various origins during the US presidential election season, scheduled for November 3, according to a Reuters report.
According to the agency, memoranda from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security indicate that local militants may threaten election-related targets in the run-up to maturity.
An FBI spokeswoman said the office “routinely shares the information it has with our law enforcement partners to help protect the communities they serve.”
A memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security, dated August 17, said militants and other ideologically motivated actors “can act quickly” to carry out election-related violence.
The memo indicated that lone militants who believe in the supremacy of the white race, and others who have “personal ideologies,” pose the greatest threat to carry out bloody acts of violence.
A US official said the militants are taking advantage of “mounting political tensions, internal unrest and external disinformation campaigns,” according to Reuters.
And the Office of Homeland Security, in the state of New Jersey, recently published a report on its website, warning of the danger of these threats. The report refers to three possible post-election scenarios, which are a quick announcement of the results, a lengthy process that takes months to determine the name of the winner, or a legal battle in the Supreme Court to resolve the outcome.
The evaluation concluded that any of the scenarios could lead to violence, with the possibility of bloody clashes between protesters and attacks on police personnel. The bureau report says the militants will likely be “anarchists, anti-government and racially motivated.”
“It has this mix of difficult events that has not happened in American history,” said Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Director Jared Maples.
National Security Council spokesman John Oliot told Reuters that the top priority for US President Donald Trump is “to protect the United States from all threats, external and internal.”
In recent months, protests have been held in several US cities against “racism and police brutality,” interspersed with acts of violence, sabotage and clashes between militant factions of the right and left.
This occurs when the country faces the crisis of the Corona pandemic, high unemployment and a state of political polarization. US President Donald Trump questioned the integrity of the election out of concern about voting by mail, which is expected to lead to historic turnout, while seeing it pave the way for “delay in announcing results and fraud, ”and hinted at the possibility that the Supreme Court could intervene to resolve the outcome of the dispute. .
“The threat from local militants has always been there before, but it is getting more attention this year,” Mike Sina, president of the National Integration Center Association, told Reuters. “We have always had threats during national elections from violent militants, including terrorist organizations … With current events, threats have come into the limelight more than ever,” he added.
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report published last June that the election results could lead to violence from either the right or the far left.
“If President Trump loses the election, some on the hardliners may resort to violence because they believe there is fraud or that the election of the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, will undermine their hardline goals, and some on the far left may resort terrorism if Trump is re-elected, “the report said.
