Canada places US rightwing militia group Three Percenters on terror list

Canada has officially named the US rightwing militia group Three Percenters as a terrorist entity alongside Isis and al-Qaida, saying it had an active presence in Canada and could threaten national security.

Earlier this month US prosecutors obtained a conspiracy indictment against six men associated with the Three Percenters, the latest in a series of such charges arising from the 6 January attack at the Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters.

Canadian officials cited the riot and said members of the Three Percenters had been linked to a 2020 plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan.

Canadian officials cited the January 6 riot in their listing. Public safety minister Bill Blair said the group had an active presence in Canada and were interested in recruiting members of the police and people with military training.

“We monitor their activities in Canada with growing concern,” he told a news conference.

Earlier this month, a Canadian man was charged with terror offenses and murder after ramming his truck into a Muslim family in London, Ontario, killing four of them, in what police called a racist attack.

“Recent events should remove any doubts about the serious threat posed by ideologically motivated violent extremism. Intolerance and hate have no place in our society,” said Blair.

Ottawa also added leading US neoNazi activist James Mason, the British group Aryan Strikeforce and an Isis affiliate group in the Democratic Republic of Congo to the list on Friday.

Founded in 2008, the Three Percenters is a loosely organized anti-govern

ment group that takes its name from the idea that only 3% of American colonists took up arms against the British in the 18th-century American Revolution.

The group’s assets can now be frozen by banks and financial institutions, and it is a crime for Canadians to knowingly deal with assets of a listed entity. Anyone belonging to such a group can be blocked from entering Canada.

In February, Canada named the farright Proud Boys a terrorist entity, saying it posed a “pivotal role” in the attack on the US Capitol.