American Militant Extremists

American Militant Extremists
United States, radicals


Do homegrown terrorists pose a threat to the United States?
Yes. The September 11 attacks—the biggest and deadliest terrorist plot ever executed in the United States—were carried out by foreigners but Americans are responsible for three quarters of the 335 incidents between 1980 and 2000 that the FBI has classified as suspected or confirmed terrorism. The most notorious example of domestic terrorism is the April 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and injured more than 500.
Is domestic terrorism a new phenomenon?
No. It has existed for more than a century and even resulted in the assassination of an American president. Extremists across the political spectrum—including white supremacists, Puerto Rican separatists, abortion opponents, and environmentalists—have used a variety of terrorist tactics to pursue their goals. Experts say domestic terrorism is becoming more dangerous as groups adopt looser organizational structures similar to that of the al-Qaeda network, plan larger attacks, and consider turning to weapons of mass destruction.
What is domestic terrorism?
Just as differing definitions of terrorism are offered by government agencies and other experts, so the meaning of domestic terrorism is also hard to pin down. The FBI, the lead federal agency dealing with domestic terrorism, has defined it as “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” The U.S.A. Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, defines domestic terrorism as criminal acts that are “dangerous to human life” and seem to be meant to scare civilians or affect policy. Civil rights groups have expressed concern that this definition is overly broad.
Not all politically motivated violence qualifies as terrorism (for instance, the FBI and some terrorism experts did not regard the Unabomber, who says his antimodern beliefs were behind a 17-year mail-bombing campaign, as a terrorist), nor do all groups that espouse extremist ideas turn to terrorist acts. Experts do not consider all political assassinations or hate crimes to be terrorist attacks, and some critics note that politics often helps determine what gets labeled domestic terrorism as opposed to criminal activity.
What types of domestic terrorism are there?
The FBI classifies domestic terrorist threats mostly by political motive, dividing them into three main categories: left-wing, right-wing, and special-interest. Religious sects have also been connected with terrorist incidents.
 
What is left-wing domestic terrorism?
Terrorist activity by anticapitalist revolutionary groups. In the late nineteenth century, immigrants from Eastern Europe sympathetic to the international anarchist movement launched what historians consider the first wave of domestic terrorism in the United States. Anarchists tried to kill the steel tycoon Henry Clay Frick in 1892 and bombed Chicago’s Haymarket in 1898. In 1901, an anarchist sympathizer named Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York.
Another wave of left-wing terrorist activity began in the 1960s. Far-left groups such as the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Armed Forces for Puerto Rican National Liberation (FALN) used bombings and kidnappings to draw attention to their radical causes. By the mid-1980s, however, left-wing terrorism had begun to wane.
Are left-wing domestic terrorists still active?
The only such groups still active, experts say, are Puerto Rican separatists, but even their activists have been scaled back. In its heyday, the FALN tried to kill President Truman, stormed the House of Representatives, and set off bombs in New York City, but Puerto Rican extremists today tend to confine their activities to Puerto Rico. On another front, the FBI warns that anarchist and socialist groups, which have seen a revival since the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, represent “a latent but potential terrorist threat.”
http://www.terrorismanswers.com/groups/american.html

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