Domestic terrorism in the United States

Based on Wikipedia: Domestic terrorism in the United States

Here's a fact that might surprise you: according to the United States government as of 2024, the single greatest domestic terrorism threat facing the country isn't foreign-inspired jihadism. It's white supremacy.

That finding, from the Department of Homeland Security and confirmed by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray, represents a dramatic shift in how America thinks about threats from within. For years after September 11th, 2001, the national security apparatus focused overwhelmingly on international terrorism and Islamic extremism. But the data tells a different story about what's actually happening on American soil.

What Counts as Domestic Terrorism?

The definition itself is surprisingly slippery. The USA PATRIOT Act—that sprawling piece of legislation passed in the frantic weeks after 9/11—lays out three conditions. An act qualifies as domestic terrorism if it involves dangerous criminal activity, appears intended to intimidate civilians or influence government through coercion, and occurs primarily within the United States.

But here's the catch: while "international terrorism" is an actual crime you can be charged with under federal law, "domestic terrorism" isn't. There's no federal criminal offense by that name. Instead, prosecutors charge domestic terrorists under other statutes—killing federal agents, attempting to destroy buildings with explosives, and so on.

This distinction matters. It means domestic terrorists often face different legal pathways than their international counterparts, even when their body counts are similar or higher.

Some states have filled this gap. New York and Washington, D.C., for instance, define terrorism as a crime regardless of whether the perpetrators have foreign connections. But this creates a patchwork where the same act might be terrorism in one jurisdiction and simply murder in another.

The Numbers Tell a Story

Between 2016 and 2018, the FBI arrested 355 suspects on domestic terrorism charges. The vast majority were motivated by two things: racism and anti-government ideology.

A 2017 report from the Government Accountability Office examined 85 deadly extremist incidents since September 11th. Far-right extremist groups were responsible for 73 percent of them. Radical Islamist extremists accounted for 27 percent. Left-wing groups? Zero deaths.

The total death toll between far-right and Islamist extremists was roughly equal, but that equivalence is misleading. Forty-one percent of the deaths attributed to radical Islamists came from a single event: the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, where one gunman killed 49 people. Remove that outlier, and the picture shifts dramatically.

By 2019, a study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that far-right attackers were responsible for about 66 percent of domestic terrorism attacks and plots. By 2020, that figure had climbed to 90 percent.

Violence in Defense of the Unborn

Anti-abortion extremism represents one of America's longest-running domestic terrorism campaigns, spanning decades and claiming multiple lives. The perpetrators often frame their violence as morally necessary—they're saving lives, they argue, by taking them.

The 1990s were particularly bloody. In 1993, Michael Griffin shot Dr. David Gunn to death during a protest outside his clinic. The following year brought three more killings: Paul Jennings Hill murdered Dr. John Britton and clinic escort James Barrett (wounding Barrett's wife June in the same attack), while John Salvi killed two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, at clinics in Massachusetts.

Hill, notably, would shout at clinic workers that "God hates murderers" before committing murder himself.

Eric Robert Rudolph took a different approach—bombs. He targeted the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, killing one person and wounding 111, explicitly in protest of abortion. He then bombed several abortion clinics between 1997 and 1998, killing a security guard and critically injuring a nurse.

The violence continued into the new millennium. In 2009, Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller while Tiller served as an usher at his church. Tiller had been a target before—in 1993, Shelley Shannon shot and wounded him. His eventual murder was, in a grim sense, the completion of an earlier attempt.

In 2015, Robert Lewis Dear opened fire on a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado, killing two civilians and a police officer. After a five-hour standoff, Dear told police: "No more baby parts." He was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Running through many of these attacks is an underground network called the Army of God. This loose organization connects individuals who believe they're engaged in literal holy warfare against abortion providers. They've claimed responsibility for bombings through letters sent to newspapers and maintain a website celebrating those who've killed in their cause.

The Far Right's Rise

The umbrella of "right-wing terrorism" covers a diverse collection of ideologies: neo-Nazism, neo-fascism, white nationalism, white separatism, ethnonationalism, religious nationalism, and the sovereign citizen movement, which holds that the federal government has no legitimate authority over individuals.

In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report identifying white supremacists as the top domestic terrorism threat. FBI Director Wray confirmed this assessment in March 2021, noting that the bureau had elevated the threat to the same level as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—a remarkable statement about homegrown extremism.

Notably, that same Homeland Security report didn't mention antifa—short for "anti-fascist"—despite persistent claims about its danger from President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr, and other administration officials.

The gap between political rhetoric and threat assessments became stark. Politicians emphasized left-wing threats; intelligence agencies emphasized right-wing ones. The data consistently supported the agencies.

Congressional response has been halting. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act proposed creating dedicated offices within the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI specifically to combat far-right violence. In September 2020, the Democratic-majority House passed it unanimously. The Republican-majority Senate never allowed a vote. Senator Ron Johnson claimed the Justice Department had warned the legislation might "impede" rather than help efforts against far-right violence, though specific concerns were never publicly elaborated.

The Atomwaffen Effect

Among the most dangerous groups to emerge in recent years is Atomwaffen Division—"atomwaffen" being German for "atomic weapons." Based in Florida, this neo-Nazi organization promotes the writings of James Mason, a former American Nazi Party member whose book Siege advocates for accelerating societal collapse through violence.

Atomwaffen's ideology blends several toxic streams: race war against minorities, Jews, and LGBT people; Nazi esotericism and occultism; and a belief that the current order must be destroyed rather than reformed. With roughly 80 full members, a larger group of initiates, and 20 cells across 23 states, they represent a genuinely decentralized threat.

The group has spawned international offshoots: the Sonnenkrieg Division in the United Kingdom (the name means "sun war"), the Feuerkrieg Division in the Baltic states ("fire war"), and Northern Order in Canada.

They've also produced a body count. The organization has been linked to eight deaths, most notably the murder of Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish college student in California, and the killings of two of their own members, Jeremy Himmelman and Andrew Oneschuk, in an internal dispute.

The Eco-Terror That Wasn't

In June 2008, the FBI declared eco-terrorists and extreme animal rights activists "one of the most serious domestic terrorism threats" in America. Over nearly three decades since 1979, they had committed more than 2,000 crimes and caused over $110 million in damages.

The targets were consistent: lumber companies, animal testing facilities, genetic research firms. The tactics included arson, vandalism, and harassment campaigns against employees and business partners.

But here's what's notable: zero human casualties. Not one death was attributed to eco-terrorism or animal rights extremism in that entire period.

Compare that to far-right extremism's body count over a much shorter timeframe, and you begin to see why threat assessments eventually shifted. Property damage, however extensive, differs fundamentally from murder.

The Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, was particularly active. In 2001 alone, eight terrorist incidents in the United States were attributed to the group. Their most notable operations were arsons causing millions in damage, destruction of construction and logging equipment, and attacks on SUV dealerships. William Cottrell was convicted in 2004 for vandalizing more than 120 sport utility vehicles in California, causing over $2.5 million in damages.

But damaged cars aren't dead people. The distinction matters when allocating investigative resources.

The New Nihilists

Perhaps the most disturbing development in recent years is the rise of what law enforcement calls "nihilistic violent extremism"—violence without a coherent ideological justification, motivated instead by a generalized hatred for humanity itself.

Two networks exemplify this trend: 764 and No Lives Matter. Both operate primarily online, and both have been designated as "tier one" investigative priorities by the FBI—the same level as established terrorist organizations.

764 focuses on sextortion against children—using sexually explicit material to blackmail minors—while No Lives Matter emphasizes real-world violence. Both may adopt the aesthetics of other extremist movements (neo-Nazism, the Order of Nine Angles, accelerationism) without necessarily believing in those ideologies. The violence itself appears to be the point.

These groups present a particular challenge for investigators. Traditional counter-terrorism assumes ideological motivation—understand the ideology, and you can predict targets, identify vulnerable individuals for recruitment, and develop counter-messaging. But when the ideology is simply destruction for its own sake, those tools fail.

The Long Shadow of Lynching

American domestic terrorism didn't begin in the 1990s or after September 11th. It has deep roots in the nation's history of racial violence.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, more than 4,400 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1940. These weren't random acts of individual cruelty. They were part of a coordinated, widely supported terrorist campaign to enforce racial subordination and segregation throughout the South and beyond.

The perpetrators rarely faced consequences. Local law enforcement was often complicit. Political leaders tacitly or explicitly approved. The message was clear: challenge the racial order, and you may be killed with impunity.

That history echoes into the present. In July 2020, the FBI investigated an alleged attempted lynching of Vauhxx Booker, a civil rights activist in Bloomington, Indiana. Video showed five men pinning Booker down; he reported they had Confederate flags and threatened to lynch him. The case wound through the justice system for over a year before being resolved through restorative justice, with all charges—against both Booker and his alleged attackers—eventually dropped.

The outcome pleased almost no one. For those who saw the incident as attempted murder, restorative justice felt inadequate. For those who questioned Booker's account, the initial charges against him validated their skepticism. The ambiguity itself was telling: even today, determining what constitutes racial terrorism and how to address it remains deeply contested.

Cuban Exile Violence

Not all domestic terrorism fits neatly into current political categories. During the 1970s, two affiliated Cuban exile groups—Alpha 66 (which still exists) and Omega 7 (now defunct)—carried out a sustained campaign of bombings and sabotage.

While many of their attacks targeted Cuba and the Castro government, numerous incidents occurred on American soil, particularly during a period of diplomatic engagement between Cuba and the United States known as "el Diálogo"—the dialogue. Powerful anti-Castro figures in Miami attempted to terrorize members of their own community who advocated for negotiation.

Luciano Nieves was killed because he supported peaceful coexistence with Cuba. Emilio Milian, news director for radio station WQBA-AM, lost both his legs to a car bomb after publicly condemning Cuban exile violence.

As journalist Joan Didion documented in her book Miami, and Human Rights Watch confirmed in a 1992 report, extreme Cuban exiles had created an environment where "moderation can be a dangerous position." Advocating for dialogue with Castro could get you killed—not in Havana, but in Florida.

The Aryan Nations Network

The Aryan Nations, founded in the 1970s by Richard Girnt Butler, represents one of America's oldest white nationalist networks. The RAND Corporation called it "the first truly nationwide terrorist network" in the United States—an assessment that speaks to both its reach and its influence on later movements.

Butler established the organization as an arm of Christian Identity, a theology that identifies white Europeans as the true children of Israel and considers Jews to be the literal offspring of Satan. It's a belief system that provides religious justification for racial violence.

By 2007, two main factions claimed descent from Butler's group. The fragmentation is typical of extremist movements—internal disputes lead to splits, which lead to competing organizations, which sometimes leads to violence between factions even as they share enemies.

The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord

Some groups burn bright and then collapse. The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) formed in 1971 in the small Missouri community of Elijah. They combined Christian Identity theology with paramilitary training and apocalyptic expectations.

One member, Richard Wayne Snell, murdered both a pawnshop owner and a Missouri state trooper. The group's compound became a haven for wanted extremists.

In 1985, the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) laid siege to the CSA compound. Unlike later sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco, it ended without mass casualties—the group surrendered after several days. But the organization never recovered.

The CSA's rise and fall illustrates a pattern: isolated communities developing increasingly radical ideologies, attracting violent individuals, eventually drawing law enforcement attention, and then either being destroyed or fragmenting into smaller, harder-to-track cells.

The Jewish Defense League

Not all domestic terrorism comes from the political right. The Jewish Defense League (JDL), founded in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City, has been responsible for its own campaign of violence.

FBI statistics record 15 terrorist attacks attempted by JDL members between 1980 and 1985. In 2004 congressional testimony, FBI official Mary Doran described the JDL as "a proscribed terrorist group."

Kahane founded the organization ostensibly to protect Jews from antisemitic violence. But the group evolved into something more aggressive, targeting Soviet diplomats, Arab interests, and eventually anyone perceived as threatening Jewish interests. The line between self-defense and terrorism proved porous.

The Threat That Keeps Changing

What makes domestic terrorism so difficult to address is that it constantly evolves. The threats of the 1970s (Cuban exile violence, left-wing radicals like the Weather Underground) differ from the threats of the 1990s (militia movements, anti-abortion extremism) and those of the 2020s (white supremacist networks, online nihilism).

Law enforcement repeatedly finds itself fighting the last war. Resources allocated to counter one threat become entrenched even as new dangers emerge. Political considerations shape which threats get attention and which get ignored.

The data, however, has been remarkably consistent for over a decade: far-right extremism represents the deadliest domestic terrorism threat in the United States. Whether that finding translates into proportional resources and attention depends less on evidence than on political will.

In September 2025, just a week after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Department of Justice under the second Trump administration removed a 2024 study from its website. The study, titled "What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism," showed that white supremacist and far-right violence "continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism" in the United States. Its removal illustrated how threat assessments can become politically inconvenient—and how inconvenient facts sometimes simply disappear.

Understanding domestic terrorism requires accepting an uncomfortable truth: the call is coming from inside the house. The greatest threats to American lives aren't foreign agents or international conspiracies. They're American citizens, motivated by American ideologies, attacking American targets. That's harder to confront than an external enemy—and perhaps that's why, despite the data, the conversation remains so difficult.