Alwaght-White Americans have been identified as the biggest terror threat in the United States than individuals affiliated to the al-Qaeda or ISIS extremist groups.
According to the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, most of the “terror” attacks carried out on US soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks have been committed by white supremacist and radical anti-government groups.
The study shows that, almost twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists and antigovernment fanatics since 9/11 than by al- individuals affiliated to or inspired by al-Qaeda and similar outfits.
The massacre of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church last week by a fanatic white supremacist was the latest incident of white racists' terrorist attacks in the US.
John Horgan, who studies terrorism at the University of Massachusetts, said the mismatch between public perceptions and actual cases had become steadily more obvious to scholars.
“There’s an acceptance now of the idea that the threat from jihadi [takfiri] terrorism in the United States has been overblown,” Dr. Horgan said. “And there’s a belief that the threat of right-wing, antigovernment violence has been underestimated.”
Attacks by non-Muslims especially right-wing groups get comparatively little coverage in the news media. Most people will struggle to remember the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that killed six people in 2012. A man who associated with neo-Nazi groups carried out that shooting. There was also the married couple in Las Vegas who walked into a pizza shop and murdered two police officers. They left a swastika on one of the bodies before killing a third person in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Such attacks are not limited to one part of the U.S. In 2011, two white supremacists went on a shooting spree in the Pacific Northwest, killing four people.
There is also controversy on the exact definition of terrorism. In its study, the New America Foundation took a narrow view of what could be considered a terror attack. Most mass shootings, for instance, like Sandy Hook or the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting — both in 2012 — weren't included. Also not included was the killing of three Muslim students in North Carolina earlier this year. This is while the shooter was a neighbor and had strong opinions about religion.
“With non-Muslims, the media bends over backward to identify some psychological traits that may have pushed them over the edge,” said Abdul Cader Asmal, a retired physician and a longtime spokesman for Muslims in Boston. “Whereas if it’s a Muslim, the assumption is that they must have done it because of their religion.”