The Evolution of Far-Right Terrorist Tactics and Targeting

Abstract

Far-right terrorism today poses perhaps the gravest terrorism threat to Western communities. Over the course of the past 50 years, however, the manifestations of such violence have shifted, as social media and strategic innovations such as leaderless resistance have impacted both the tactics and targeting involved in far-right violence. Today, lone actor attacks using firearms and targeting soft targets predominate, but terrorists nonetheless continue to innovate with technologies such as 3D-printing. Such developments hold considerable implications for counterterrorism practitioners, who must balance relatively simplistic yet lethal violence with the enduring possibilities of terrorist innovation using emerging technology.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This article contains excerpts from Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2024).

2 John Earnest, “An Open Letter,” April 2019.

3 Jason Hanna and Darran Simon, “The Suspect in Poway Synagogue Shooting Used an Assault Rifle and Had Extra Magazines, Prosecutors Said,” CNN, May 1, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/30/us/california-synagogue-shooting-investigation/index.html.

4 Andrew H. Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism,” International Security 31, no. 1 (Summer 2006): 49–80.

5 See, for example, Daniel Koehler and Peter Popella, “Mapping Far-right Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Terrorism Efforts in the West: Characteristics of Plots and Perpetrators for Future Threat Assessment,” Terrorism and Political Violence 32, no. 8 (2020): 1666–90, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2018.1500365; Graham Macklin, “The Christchurch Attacks: Livestream Terror in the Viral Video Age,” CTC Sentinel 12, no. 6 (July 2019), https://ctc.usma.edu/christchurch-attacks-livestream-terror-viral-video-age/; and Brent R. Klein, Jeff Gruenewald, and Brent L. Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States,” Crime & Delinquency 63, no. 10, (2017): 1224–49, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128716654925.

6 Bryan Burrough, Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence (Penguin, 2016).

7 Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 245.

8 Jeffrey Simon, Lone Wolf Terrorism: Understanding the Growing Threat (Amherst: Prometheus, 2016), 256–7.

9 J.M. Berger, “The Turner Legacy: The Storied Origins and Enduring Impact of White Nationalism’s Deadly Bible,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, September 16, 2016, https://www.icct.nl/index.php/publication/turner-legacy-storied-origins-and-enduring-impact-white-nationalisms-deadly-bible.

10 Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 2018), 233.

11 Andrew Buncombe, Terri Judd, and Jason Bennetto, “‘Hate-Filled’ Nailbomber is Jailed for Life,” Independent, June 30, 2000, https://web.archive.org/web/20091201133942/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/hatefilled-nailbomber-is-jailed-for-life-706785.html.

12 “Once Again, The Turner Diaries Inspires Bloodshed,” Southern Poverty Law Center, September 15, 2000, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2000/once-again-turner-diaries-inspires-bloodshed.

13 Jo Thomas, “This Time, the I.R.A. Comes Close to Thatcher,” New York Times, October 14, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/14/weekinreview/this-time-the-ira-comes-close-to-thatcher.html.

14 Bruce Hoffman, “Back to the Future: The Return of Violent Far-Right Terrorism in the Age of Lone Wolves,” War on the Rocks, April 2, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/back-to-the-future-the-return-of-violent-far-right-terrorism-in-the-age-of-lone-wolves/.

15 Brenton Tarrant, “The Great Replacement: Towards a New Society,” March 2019.

16 For a broader discussion about lone actor violence and the utility of the term, see Bart Schuurman, Edwin Bakker, Paul Gill, and Noémie Bouhana, “Lone Actor Terrorist Attack Planning and Preparation: A Data-Driven Analysis,” Journal of Forensic Sciences 63, no. 4 (July 2018), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29059713/. For an analysis of how lone actor terrorists compare to other “public mass murderers,” see Paul Gill, James Silver, John Horgan, Emily Corner, and Noémie Bouhana, “Similar crimes, similar behaviors? Comparing lone-actor terrorists and public mass murderers,” Journal of Forensic Sciences 66, no. 5 (September 2021): 1797–804, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.14793#.YO2RkFWySBJ.twitter. On the limitations of leaderless resistance, see Daniel Byman, Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 137–42.

17 David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 90.

18 Graham Macklin, “The Christchurch Attacks: Livestream Terror in the Viral Video Age,” CTC Sentinel 12, no. 6 (July 2019), https://ctc.usma.edu/christchurch-attacks-livestream-terror-viral-video-age/.

19 For analysis on how to interdict a lone actor attack, see Tore Bjørgo and Jacob Aasland Ravndal, “Extreme-Right Violence and Terrorism: Concepts, Patterns, and Responses,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism—The Hague, September 2019, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep19624.pdf; and Daniel Byman, “How to Hunt a Lone Wolf,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2017), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-02-13/how-hunt-lone-wolf.

20 Jacob Aasland Ravndal, “From Bombs to Books, and Back Again? Mapping Strategies of Right-Wing Revolutionary Resistance,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2021), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/1057610X.2021.1907897?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab.

21 Jacob Ware, “Siege: The Atomwaffen Division and Rising Far-Right Terrorism in the United States,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, July 2019, https://icct.nl/publication/siege-the-atomwaffen-division-and-rising-far-right-terrorism-in-the-united-states/.

22 “National Socialist Order Program,” seen by author.

23 Ben Makuch and Mack Lamoureux, “Neo-Nazi Terror Leader Said to Have Worked With U.S. Special Forces,” Vice, September 24, 2020, https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7qdzv/neo-nazi-terror-leader-said-to-have-worked-with-us-special-forces.

24 For a “crime script analysis” of mass shootings in the United States over the past several decades, see Jason R. Silva, “Ideologically motivated mass shootings: a crime script analysis of far-right, far-left, and jihadist-inspired attacks in the United States,” Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 18, no. 1 (2023), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/18335330.2022.2039402?needAccess=true.

25 Tarrant, “The Great Replacement.”

26 National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, “Lone Offender: A Study of Lone Offender Terrorism in the United States (1972-2015),” Federal Bureau of Investigation, November 13, 2019, https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/fbi-releases-lone-offender-terrorism-report-111319.

27 “Murder & Extremism in the United States in 2022,” ADL Center on Extremism, February 2023, https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2022.

28 Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, and Nicholas Harrington, “The Tactics and Targets of Domestic Terrorists,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/tactics-and-targets-domestic-terrorists.

29 “McVeigh’s Apr. 26 Letter to Fox News,” Fox News, April 26, 2001, https://www.foxnews.com/story/mcveighs-apr-26-letter-to-fox-news.

30 John Earnest, “An open letter,” April 2019.

31 Stephan Balliet manifesto, as seen by author. See also, “Germany: Man attacked, seriously hurt outside Hamburg synagogue,” Al Jazeera, October 4, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/4/man-seriously-wounded-after-attacknear-synagogue-in-german-city.

32 Dylann Roof, “rtf88,” June 2015.

33 Lenny Bernstein, Sari Horwitz, and Peter Holley, “Dylann Roof’s racist manifesto: ‘I have no choice,’” Washington Post, June 20, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/authorities-investigate-whether-racist-manifesto-was-written-by-sc-gunman/2015/06/20/f0bd3052-1762-11e5-9ddc-e3353542100c_story.html.

34 Rachel Chason, Annette Nevins, Annie Gowen, and Hailey Fuchs, “As his environment changed, suspect in El Paso shooting learned to hate,” Washington Post, August 9, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/as-his-environment-changed-suspect-in-el-paso-shooting-learned-to-hate/2019/08/09/8ebabf2c-817b-40a3-a79e-e56fbac94cd5_story.html.

35 Patrick Crusius, “The Inconvenient Truth,” August 2019.

36 Blyth Crawford and Florence Keen, “The Hanau Terrorist Attack: How Race Hate and Conspiracy Theories Are Fueling Global Far-Right Violence,” CTC Sentinel 13, no. 3 (March 2020), https://ctc.usma.edu/hanau-terrorist-attack-race-hate-conspiracy-theories-fueling-global-far-right-violence/.

37 Phillip M. Bailey and Allison Ross, “‘Whites don’t shoot whites’: What one man says Kroger shooter told him,” Courier Journal, October 25, 2018, https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2018/10/25/louisville-kroger-shooting-suspect-whites-dont-shoot-whites/1759947002/.

38 Amarnath Amarasingam, Marc-André Argentino, and Graham Macklin, “The Buffalo Attack: The Cumulative Momentum of Far-Right Terror,” CTC Sentinel 15, no. 7 (July 2022), https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-buffalo-attack-the-cumulative-momentum-of-far-right-terror/.

39 See, for example, Julia Kupper, Tanya Karoli Christensen, Dakota Wing, Marlon Hurt, Matthew Schumacher, and Reid Meloy, “The Contagion and Copycat Effect in Transnational Far-right Terrorism: An Analysis of Language Evidence,” Perspectives on Terrorism 16, no. 4 (August 2022), https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/customsites/perspectives-on-terrorism/2022/issue-4/kupper-et-al.pdf; Tore Bjørgo and Jacob Aasland Ravndal, “Extreme-Right Violence and Terrorism: Concepts, Patterns, and Responses,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism—The Hague, September 2019, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep19624.pdf; and Graham Macklin, “The Christchurch Attacks: Livestream Terror in the Viral Video Age,” CTC Sentinel 12, no. 6 (July 2019), https://ctc.usma.edu/christchurch-attacks-livestream-terror-viral-video-age/.

40 Patrick Crusius, “The Inconvenient Truth,” August 2019.

41 Matthew M. Sweeney and Arie Perliger, “Explaining the Spontaneous Nature of Far-Right Violence in the United States,” Perspectives on Terrorism 12, no. 6 (December 2018), 52–71.

42 “Olathe, Kansas, shooting suspect ‘said he killed Iranians,’” BBC, February 28, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39108060.

43 Maggie Vespa, “‘Go back to Saudi Arabia’: Muslim, Black Communities Watching MAX Attack Trial Closely,” KGW8, February 18, 2020, https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/trimet-attack/portland-max-trial-jeremy-christian-black-muslim-communities/283-cd14e46c-f47a-4308-8bd0-239b6f26eb36.

44 “Far Right Forum Calls For Organized, ‘Tactical’ Terror Attacks From White Nationalists. Against Various Targets,” SITE Intelligence Group, May 8, 2019.

45 Michael E. Miller, “Hunting Black Men to Start a ‘Race War,’” Washington Post, December 27, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/local/race-war-murder-hate-crime/.

46 “Teenage Neo-Nazis Jailed Over Terror Offences,” BBC, June 18, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48672929.

47 Tess Owen, “White Supremacists Built a Website to Doxx Interracial Couples—and It’s Going to Be Hard to Take Down,” VICE, May 13, 2020, https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7ww4w/white-supremacists-built-a-website-to-doxx-interracial-couples-and-its-going-to-be-hard-to-take-down.

48 Kimball Perry, “Mo. Executes White Supremacist Serial Killer Franklin,” USA Today, November 20, 2013, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2013/11/20/joseph-paul-franklinexecution/3648881/. David Cay Johnston, “William Pierce, 69, Neo-Nazi Leader, Dies,” New York Times, July 24, 2002, https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/us/william-pierce-69-neo-nazi-leaderdies.html.

49 See, for example, “Nazi Court to Try First Foreign Jew for ‘rassenschande,’” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 3, 1935, https://www.jta.org/archive/nazi-court-to-try-first-foreign-jewfor-rassenschande.

50 “White Supremacists Debate Repercussions For ‘Race Mixing,’” SITE Intelligence Group, April 23, 2012.

51 See Jacob Ware and Colin P. Clarke, “How Far-Right Terrorists Choose Their Enemies,” Foreign Policy, February 9, 2022, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/09/far-right-terrorism-extremism-target-selection-jihad-enemy/; and Jacob Ware and Colin P. Clarke, “How Far-Right Terrorists Choose Their Enemies,” The Soufan Center, December 19, 2022, https://thesoufancenter.org/research/how-far-right-terrorists-choose-their-enemies/. For more on jihadist near enemy and far enemy targeting, see Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Thomas Joscelyn, Enemies Near and Far How Jihadist Groups Strategize, Plot, and Learn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022).

52 Cato Hemmingby and Tore Bjørgo, “Terrorist Target Selection: The Case of Anders Behring Breivik,” Perspectives on Terrorism 12, no. 6 (December 2018): 170.

53 James Mason, Siege (ironmarch.org, Revision 1 June 2, 2015), 92.

54 “‘Anti-Government’ Killers Put Swastika, Flag on Metro Police Officer’s Body,” Las Vegas Sun, June 9, 2014, https://lasvegassun.com/news/2014/jun/09/police-describe-bloodbath-created-neo-nazi-couple-/.

55 “Far-Right Forum Suggests First Targeting Police When the Supposed ‘Bloody Uprising’. Comes,” SITE Intelligence Group, July 1, 2019.

56 Laura Wagner, “Accused Planned Parenthood Shooter: ‘I’m A Warrior For The Babies,’” NPR, December 9, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/09/459116186/planned-parenthood-shooter-im-a-warrior-for-the-babies.

57 Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, and Nicholas Harrington, “The Tactics and Targets of Domestic Terrorists,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/tactics-and-targets-domestic-terrorists.

58 See, for example, Hannah Rose, “The Bratislava Attacks: Insights from the Shooter’s Manifesto,” Global Network on Extremism & Technology, October 14, 2022, https://gnet-research.org/2022/10/14/the-bratislava-shooting-and-manifesto-initial-insights-and-learnings/; and Bruce Hoffman, Jacob Ware, and Ezra Shapiro, “Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 43, no. 7 (April 2020), 565–87, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2020.1751459.

59 “Death Of A Domestic Terrorist,” Digg, May 27, 2015, https://digg.com/2015/by-knife-or-by-bullet.

60 Brent R. Klein, Jeff Gruenewald, and Brent L. Smith, “Opportunity, Group Structure, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-Right Terrorism Incidents in the United States,” Crime & Delinquency 63, no. 10, (2017): 1224–49, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128716654925.

61 “Neo-Nazi Telegram Channel Offers Alternative to Mass Shooting Strategy, Including Violence. Against ‘High-Profile’ Targets,” SITE Intelligence Group, March 18, 2020.

62 Breivik’s attack may have been so ambitious and complex, in fact, that it ultimately deterred others from following his attack model. Graham Macklin and Tore Bjørgo, “Breivik’s Long Shadow? The Impact of the July 22, 2011 Attacks on the Modus Operandi of Extreme-right Lone Actor Terrorists,” Perspectives on Terrorism 15, no. 3 (June 2021): 14–36, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27030880?casa_token=fvjbOCWkhqIAAAAA%3AZjmkv0S3k-cpA8bBMg3lqHzI-M7T4ycAJZqv5BDbAEzbdDEHWzNkOlNO5metoSLknklgzIwa0VRoXA2y72Dkf2EJu1EL-E0nF_G4_cbGd2RANMPijrVR.

63 Nick R. Martin, “Radio active,” The Informant, July 29, 2020, https://www.informant.news/p/radio-active.

64 ADL Alert for Law Enforcement/Screenshots belonging to author.

65 Vera Bergengruen, “‘Is There Something More Sinister Going On?’ Authorities Fear Extremists Are Targeting U.S. Power Grid,” TIME, January 9, 2023, https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/. See also Michael Loadenthal, “Feral fascists and deep green guerrillas: infrastructural attack and accelerationist terror,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 15, no. 1 (2022), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17539153.2022.2031129?needAccess=true.

66 Ilana Krill and Bennett Clifford, “Mayhem, Murder, and Misdirection: Violent Extremist Attack Plots Against Critical Infrastructure in the United States, 2016-2022,” George Washington University Program on Extremism, September 2022, https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/CriticalInfrastructureTargeting09072022.pdf.

67 Colin Clarke, Mollie Saltskog, Michaela Millender, and Naureen C. Fink, “The Targeting of Infrastructure by America’s Violent Far-Right,” CTC Sentinel 16, no. 5 (May 2023), https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-targeting-of-infrastructure-by-americas-violent-far-right/.

68 Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, “The Accelerating Threat of the Political Assassination,” War on the Rocks, August 24, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/08/the-accelerating-threat-of-the-political-assassination/.

69 Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism. 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 86. For more, see Max Boot, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present (New York: Liveright, 2013), 205–10.

70 David C. Rapoport, “The Capitol Attack and the 5th Terrorism Wave,” Terrorism and Political Violence 33, no. 5 (2021): 912–6, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2021.1932338.

71 Kate Bennett and Evan Perez, “Nation’s Top Coronavirus Expert Dr. Anthony Fauci Forced to Beef Up Security as Death Threats Increase,” CNN, April 2, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/politics/anthony-fauci-security-detail/index.html; and Dan Diamond, “Fauci gets security detail after receiving threats,” Politico, April 1, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/01/fauci-coronavirus-security-160901.

72 Will Sommer, “A QAnon Devotee Live-Streamed Her Trip to N.Y. to ‘Take Out’ Joe Biden,” Daily Beast, April 30, 2020, https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-qanon-devotee-live-streamed-her-trip-to-ny-to-take-out-joe-biden.

73 “Neo-Nazi Telegram Channel Offers Alternative to Mass Shooting Strategy, Including Violence. Against ‘High-Profile’ Targets,” SITE Intelligence Group, March 18, 2020.

74 A possible exception is Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a popular state senator from South Carolina. Pinckney was murdered by Dylann Roof at Charleston, but it is unclear whether that incident was explicitly targeted at the reverend.

75 “White Supremacists Encourage Continued Violence Against Officals,” SITE Intelligence Group, January 20, 2011.

76 Ibid.

77 Joshua Benton, “The New Jersey Shooting Suspect Left a Pro-Trump Paper Trail,” The Atlantic, July 21, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/judge-esther-salas-shooting-suspect-left-pro-trump-paper-trail/614425/. For yet another plot, Kelly Weill and Seamus Hughes, “White Supremacist Had List of Feds to Kill and Doxx: Unsealed File,” Daily Beast, October 21, 2020, https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-supremacist-chad-bagwell-allegedly-had-list-of-feds-to-kill-and-doxx-unsealed-file.

78 Madeline Holcombe, “Pipe Bomb Suspect Writes to Judge that the 16 Devices He Mailed Were Only Meant For Intimidation,” CNN, April 3, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/us/cesar-sayoc-letter-to-judge/index.html.

79 Tom Cleary, “Christopher Hasson Hit List: Coast Guard LT Targeted Democrats, Media, Feds Say,” Heavy, February 20, 2019, https://heavy.com/news/2019/02/christopher-hasson-hit-list-targets-democrats-media/.

80 Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny, “In Trump’s ‘LIBERATE’ Tweets, Extremists See a Call To Arms,” NBC News, April 17, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-s-liberate-tweets-extremists-see-call-arms-n1186561.

81 “Neo-Nazi Venue Posits Statements From President As Call For Violent Action, Encourages. Attacks on State Politicians,” SITE Intelligence Group, April 27, 2020.

82 Jaclyn Peiser, “Twitter bans Steve Bannon for video suggesting violence against Fauci, FBI Director Wray,” Washington Post, November 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/06/twitter-bannon-beheaded-fauci-wray/; “Frank Figliuzzi @FrankFigliuzzi1, 5:56 PM—Nov 5, 2020” at: https://twitter.com/FrankFigliuzzi1/status/1324485819042705408.

83 Spencer S. Hsu and Dan Morse, “Christopher Krebs Sues Trump Campaign, Lawyer Joe diGenova for Defamation,” Washington Post, December 8, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/chris-krebs-sues-trump-campaigndigenova/2020/12/08/61a68a30-389a-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html.

84 Joshua Zitser, “Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood Insists He is Not Insane After Tweeting that Mike Pence Should Face Execution By Firing Squad,” Insider, January 2, 2021, https://www.businessinsider.com/pro-trump-lawyer-l-lin-wood-tweets-that-pence-executed-2021-1.

85 Kevin Breuninger, “Trump Chief of Staff Said the President Thought Pence ‘Deserves’ Chants of ‘Hang Mike Pence’ on Jan. 6, Ex-Aide Testifies,” CNBC, June 28, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/jan-6-hearing-trump-thought-pence-deserved-chants-to-hang-him-aide-says.html.

86 Ashley Parker, Carol D. Leonnig, Paul Kane, and Emma Brown, “How the Rioters Who Stormed the Capitol Came Dangerously,” Washington Post, January 15, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-rioters-capitol-attack/2021/01/15/ab62e434-567c-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html.

87 Minyvonne Burke, “Capitol Rioter Who Said She Wanted To Shoot Nancy Pelosi Pleads Guilty to Misdemeanor,” NBC News, September 29, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/capitol-rioter-who-said-she-wanted-shoot-nancy-pelosi-pleads-n1280340.

88 See, for example, Arie Perliger, “Contextualising the Jan 6th Report: Contemporary Trends In Far-Right Violence in the US,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, January 2, 2023, https://www.icct.nl/publication/contextualising-jan-6th-report-contemporary-trends-far-right-violence-us; David C. Rapoport, “The Capitol Attack and the 5th Terrorism Wave,” Terrorism and Political Violence 33, no. 5 (2021): 912–6, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2021.1932338; Daniel Byman, “Riots, White Supremacy and Accelerationism,” Lawfare, June 1, 2020, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/riots-white-supremacy-and-accelerationism; and Martha Crenshaw, “Will failed insurrection lead to terrorism in the United States?” Violence: An International Journal 2, no. 2 (2021): 195–207, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/26330024211057687.

89 Robert Booth, Vikram Dodd, Kevin Rawlinson and Nicola Slawson, “Jo Cox Murder Suspect Tells Court His Name is ‘Death to Traitors, Freedom for Britain,’” Guardian, June 18, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/18/thomas-mair-charged-with-of-mp-jo-cox.

90 Lizzie Dearden, “German Mayoral Candidate Henriette Reker Stabbed in Neck By Man ‘Shouting About Refugees’ in Cologne,” Independent, October 17, 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-mayoral-candidate-henriette-reker-stabbed-neck-man-shouting-about-refugees-cologne-a6698061.html.

91 “German Public Figures Receive Wave of Far-Right Threats,” The Local DE, July 21, 2020, https://www.thelocal.de/20200721/german-public-figures-receive-wave-of-far-right-threats.

92 “Far-Right Chat Group Showed Disappointment in El Paso Shooter for Not Killing “High-Value. Targets,” SITE Intelligence Group, August 5, 2019.

93 “Forums Continue to Rebuke Pope Francis, Insinuate for ‘Assassination,’” SITE Intelligence Group, September 9, 2015.

94 Daniel Koehler, “Dying for the Cause? The Logic and Function of Ideologically Motivated Suicide, Martyrdom, and Self-Sacrifice Within The Contemporary Extreme Right,” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 14, no. 2 (2022): 120–41, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19434472.2020.1822426.

95 Jacob Ware and Cleary Waldo, “Ideological Leaderless Resistance in the Digital Age,” Global Network on Extremism & Technology, October 26, 2022, https://gnet-research.org/2022/10/26/ideological-leaderless-resistance-in-the-digital-age/.

96 See, for example, Matthew Alcoke, “The Evolving and Persistent Terrorism Threat to the Homeland,” The Washington Institute, November 19, 2019, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/theevolving-and-persistent-terrorism-threat-to-the-homeland; and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Andrew Zammit, Emelie Chace-Donahue, and Madison Urban, “Composite Violent Extremism: Conceptualizing Attackers Who Increasingly Challenge Traditional Categories of Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2023), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2194133.

97 Zachary Kamel, Mack Lamoureux, and Ben Makuch, “‘Eco-fascist’ Arm of Neo-Nazi Terror Group, The Base, Linked to Swedish Arson,” VICE, January 29, 2020, https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjdvzx/eco-fascist-arm-of-neo-nazi-terror-group-the-base-linked-to-swedish-arson.

98 Samantha Stern, Jacob Ware, and Nicholas Harrington, “Terrorist Targeting in the Age of Coronavirus,” International Counter-Terrorism Review 1, no. 3 (June 2020), https://www.ict.org.il/Article/2562/Terrorist_Targeting_in_the_Age_of_Coronavirus#gsc.tab=0.

99 Matthew Alcoke, “The Evolving and Persistent Terrorism Threat to the Homeland,” The Washington Institute, November 19, 2019, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-evolving-and-persistent-terrorism-threat-to-the-homeland.

100 Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, “CTRL, HATE, PRINT: Terrorists and the Appeal of 3D-Printed Weapons,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, July 13, 2021, https://www.icct.nl/publication/ctrl-hate-print-terrorists-and-appeal-3d-printed-weapons; and Eric Woods, “Right-Wing Extremists’ New Weapon,” Lawfare, March 15, 2020, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/right-wing-extremists-new-weapon.

101 Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, “Is 3-D Printing the Future of Terrorism?” Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-3-d-printing-the-future-of-terrorism-11572019769.

102 See, for example, Stephen Stock and Jeremy Carroll, “Ghost Guns Sought by Violent Extremists, Tied to Thousands of Potential Crimes, Feds Warn,” NBC Bay Area, August 7, 2021, https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/ghost-guns-sought-by-violent-extremists-tied-to-thousands-of-potential-crimes-feds-warn/2624959/; and Scott Glover, “Feds Raid ‘Ghost Gun’ Maker Whose Products They Say Are Linked To ‘Hundreds Of Crimes,’” CNN, December 11, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/11/us/atf-raid-ghost-gun-manufacturer-invs/index.html.

103 Dan Noyes and Amanda del Castillo, “Federal Officer Shooting Suspects Steven Carrillo, Robert Justus ‘Came to Oakland to Kill Cops,’ FBI says,” ABC 7, June 17, 2020, https://abc7news.com/steven-carrillo-robert-alvin-justus-jr-pat-underwood-killed-oakland/6250277/.

104 “Maryland neo-Nazis accused of discussing bringing firearms to pro-gun rally in Virginia,” Fox 5, January 16, 2020, https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/maryland-neo-nazis-accused-of-discussing-bringing-firearms-to-pro-gun-rally-in-virginia.

105 “Racialists Begin Discussing Homemade Weaponry,” SITE Intelligence Group, April 7, 2015.

106 Hannah Allam, “Vehicle Attacks Rise As Extremists Target Protesters,” NPR, June 21, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/06/21/880963592/vehicle-attacks-rise-as-extremists-target-protesters.

107 Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, James Suber, Grace Hwang, and Nicholas Harrington, “The War Comes Home: The Evolution of Domestic Terrorism in the United States,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 22, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/war-comes-home-evolution-domestic-terrorism-united-states.

108 Catrina Doxsee, Seth G. Jones, Jared Thompson, Kateryna Halstead, and Grace Hwang, “Pushed to Extremes: Domestic Terrorism amid Polarization and Protest,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 17, 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/pushed-extremes-domestic-terrorism-amid-polarization-and-protest.

109 Catrina Doxsee, Seth G. Jones, Jared Thompson, Kateryna Halstead, and Grace Hwang, “Pushed to Extremes: Domestic Terrorism amid Polarization and Protest,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 17, 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/pushed-extremes-domestic-terrorism-amid-polarization-and-protest. See also Adrienne LaFrance, “The New Anarchy,” The Atlantic, March 6, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/04/us-extremism-portland-george-floyd-protests-january-6/673088/.

110 For more, see Bruce Hoffman, “Low-Tech Terrorism,” The National Interest, no. 130, The GOP’s Balancing Act (March/April 2014): 61–71, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44153280.

111 Daniel Koehler and Peter Popella, “Mapping Far-right Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Terrorism Efforts in the West: Characteristics of Plots and Perpetrators for Future Threat Assessment,” Terrorism and Political Violence 32, no. 8 (2020): 1666–90, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2018.1500365. See also, Paul de Armond, “Right Wing Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Motives, Strategies and Movements,” U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, 1999, https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/right-wing-terrorism-and-weapons-mass-destruction-motives.

112 “Neo-Nazis Encourage Weaponizing Coronavirus, Targeting Religious and Ethnic Minorities,” SITE Intelligence Group, 2020. See also Natasha Bertrand, “DHS warns pandemic ‘stressors’ could trigger attacks on houses of worship,” Politico, April 8, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/08/dhs-warns-pandemic-could-trigger-attacks-on-houses-of-worship-175323.

113 Frontline, “Documenting Hate: New American Nazis,” PBS, November 20, 2018.

114 Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Colin P. Clarke, and Matt Shear, “Terrorists and Technological Innovation,” Lawfare, February 2, 2020, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/terrorists-and-technological-innovation.

115 Audrey Kurth Cronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2020), 13.

116 Paul Cruickshank, “The most important national security question Trump and Biden need to address,” CNN, September 28, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/opinions/most-important-national-security-question-trump-biden-cruickshank/index.html.

117 “Skinheads Discuss Second American Revolution,” SITE Intelligence Group, April 8, 2016.