Washington: Far-right terrorists in the United States such as neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups pose a greater threat than Muslim-inspired militants, with right-wingers killing 15 people in America compared with a single death from a jihadist attack in 2018, the Soufan Center said in a new report on Wednesday.
“In the United States, 2018 saw just one death as a result of jihadi-linked terrorism, although right-wing terrorists killed 15 Americans the same year,” the report stated. “Indeed, after focusing almost exclusively on the threat posed by terrorist groups inspired by the ideology of ‘bin Ladenism,’ the US has now awoken to a threat that has been percolating under the surface all along – right-wing ideology that spans a diverse array of groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, assorted neo-Nazis, and so-called white nationalists.”
Europe, meanwhile, appears to have the opposite problem, based on an available tally of terrorist attacks for the previous year that was compiled by the Center for Strategic & International studies based on 2017 data, the report said.
In 2017, Europe suffered from the highest number of terrorist attacks linked to jihadist ideology in modern history, the report said.
“The number of failed, foiled, and successful terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamic extremists in Europe increased by 725 percent between 2007 and 2017,” the Soufan report said. “In France alone, more than 20,000 people are on the so-called ‘S-List,’ which refers to individuals allegedly vulnerable to the risk of radicalization.”
Even though the data being compared is 2017 (Europe) versus 2018 (US), the general trend lines still suggest that the threat of terrorism in Europe looks qualitatively different than the threat posed to the United States, the report said.
The report also noted has that the US has been slow to recognize or even deliberately downplayed the growing threat posed by non-jihadist terrorists, with a response so far that can be criticized as cumbersome and inadequate, the report concluded. ((Sputnik) )