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White Supremacist Terrorism ‘On The Rise And Spreading’

This article is more than 3 years old.
Updated Jul 4, 2020, 03:09am EDT

TOPLINE

Racially and ethnically motivated terrorism—especially from white supremacists—is “on the rise and spreading geographically,” the U.S. State Department said in a new report, as white terrorist threats continue to come to light across the United States.

KEY FACTS

The annual report emphasized the threat white supremacist terror groups posed to security in 2019, as reports of racially or ethnically motivated attacks have increased since 2015.

Racist violence is both “on the rise and spreading geographically,” the report stated, as white supremacists “increasingly target” minority groups like immigrants, religious minorities, LGBTQ people and “other perceived enemies.”

An indictment unsealed by the Department of Justice on Monday revealed that a U.S. Army soldier was allegedly recruited to join a neo-Nazi group and helped to plan a deadly ambush on other service members.

The FBI announced two weeks ago that the U.S. Air Force sergeant who allegedly murdered law enforcement officers in California during June protests was associated with the right-wing Boogaloo movement, which has ties to white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Last week, an intelligence assessment warned that Washington, D.C., would make for an attractive target for the Boogaloo movement, and followers could “incite civil unrest or conduct violence encouraged in online forums associated with the movement.”

The Trump Administration designated the Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist organization in April, the first time a white supremacist group has been classified as such.

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“You had some very bad people in that group. But you also had some people who were very fine people, on both sides—on both sides,” President Donald Trump told reporters in 2017 about the violence and murder that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a white supremacist rally.

KEY BACKGROUND

The 2017 Unite the Right rally was a meeting of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, organized to defend a statue of General Robert E. Lee that some locals wanted removed. The far-right demonstrators clashed with antiracism protesters, violence that left dozens injured and one counterprotester, Heather Heyer, dead after a man plowed his car into a group of people. There were a number of mass shootings related to white supremacy in 2019, like the Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand, the El Paso, Texas, shooting that allegedly targeted Latinos, and a shooting at a synagogue in Halle, Germany, named in the report. Trump downplayed the threat of white supremacists in the wake of the Christchurch attack, telling reporters last year, "It’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess.”

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