DATA: DOMESTIC TERRORISM ON RISE
Incidents since ’15 driven chiefly by far-right extremists
Domestic terrorism incidents have soared to new highs in the United States, driven chiefly by White-supremacist, anti-Muslim and anti-government extremists on the far right, according to a Washington Post analysis of data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The surge reflects a growing threat from homegrown terrorism not seen in a quarter-century, with right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipsing those from the far left and causing more deaths, the analysis shows.
The number of all domestic terrorism incidents in the data peaked in 2020.
Since 2015, right-wing extremists have been involved in 267 plots or attacks and 91 fatalities, the data shows. At the same time, attacks and plots ascribed to far-left views accounted for 66 incidents leading to 19 deaths.
“What is most concerning is that the number of domestic terror plots and attacks are at the highest they have been in decades,” said Seth Jones, director of the database project at CSIS, a nonpartisan Washingtonbased nonprofit that specializes in national security issues.
“It’s so important for Americans to understand the gravity of the threat before it gets worse.”
More than a quarter of right-wing incidents and just under half of the deaths in those incidents were caused by people who showed support for white supremacy or claimed to belong to groups espousing that ideology, the analysis shows.
Victims of all incidents in
recent years represent a broad cross-section of American society, including Blacks, Jews, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, Asians and other people of color who have been attacked by right-wing extremists wielding vehicles, guns, knives and fists.
Dozens of religious institutions — including mosques, synagogues and Black churches — as well as abortion clinics and government
buildings, have been threatened, burned, bombed and hit with gunfire over the past six years.
Both far-left and farright attacks hit groundbreaking levels in 2020, the database shows, with farright incidents still the much larger group.
The 73 far-right incidents were an all-time annual high in the CSIS database, which goes back to 1994.
Left-wing attacks reached 25 in 2020. Those incidents include multiple attempts by extremists to derail trains to hinder oil pipeline construction and at least seven incidents in which police and their facilities were targeted with guns, firebombs and graffiti. The incidents included the burning of a Minneapolis police precinct during protests over the death of George Floyd.
In August, a supporter of President Donald Trump was shot dead in Portland, Ore., by a suspected gunman who was a self-described antifa supporter. That killing was the only death last year attributed to far-left violence, the data shows. There were two deaths attributed to farright attacks.
The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol spurred renewed national attention on domestic terrorism and on hate-driven violence.
The Post focused its analysis primarily on far-right attacks since 2015 because they account for a clear majority of the rising domestic terrorism events and fatalities charted by the CSIS.
The far-right incidents last year broke into distinct waves emerging amid government shutdowns in the spring, widespread racial demonstrations in the summer and confrontations over the presidential election results in the late fall, the Post’s review of the CSIS data shows.
The CSIS database is one of the best public sources of information about domestic terrorism incidents, which the group’s analysts define as attacks or plots involving a deliberate use or threat of violence to achieve political goals, create a broad psychological impact or change government policy.
That definition excludes many violent events, including incidents during nationwide unrest last year, because CSIS analysts could not determine whether attackers had a political or ideological motive.
Data released by the CSIS on Monday includes the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol as one of 11 far-right terrorism incidents that month — the most for any January in the database.
The new report highlights more involvement in far-right attacks and plots by military service members, veterans and current and former police officers, some of whom participated in the riot at the Capitol.
Following the Capitol incident, FBI Director Christopher Wray told federal lawmakers that confronting domestic terrorism is a top national security priority of the agency.