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WASHINGTON: US spy agencies warned yesterday of an ongoing threat that racially motivated violent extremists, such as white supremacists, will carry out mass casualty attacks on civilians, while militia groups target police and staff. and government buildings.
The agencies that contributed to the evaluation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center.
The assessment said that extremists promoting white racial superiority have potentially frequent communications with extremists abroad who hold similar ideological beliefs, each seeking to influence the other.
The agencies said recent political and social events, such as claims by former Republican President Donald Trump and his supporters about fraud in the November U.S. presidential election, restrictions related to Covid-19, the fallout from the riot of the January 6 at the United States Capitol and conspiracy theories. “It will almost certainly incite” some domestic extremists “to try to engage in violence this year.”
Other domestic extremist categories of concern to government researchers include environmental and animal rights activists, anti-abortion protesters, anarchists, and people calling themselves sovereign citizens who “believe they are immune from government law and authority.” the agencies said.
Citing the report, House Intelligence Speaker Adam Schiff, a Democrat, said in a statement that while lone actors posed some of the toughest challenges to detect, the violence also involved sophisticated cells and plots.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, also a Democrat, said in a statement that social media platforms had facilitated radicalization online, helping white supremacists, violent extremist groups, and militia movements to recruit, organize, and, in some cases, coordinate on all continents.
Far-right and white supremacist groups in the United States dramatically stepped up their distribution of racist or anti-Semitic flyers, posters, banners and other forms of physical propaganda last year, according to a study released Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League. – Reuters
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