Domestic terrorism

Domestic terrorism or homegrown terrorism is a form of terrorism in which victims 'within a country are targeted by a perpetrator with the same citizenship' as the victims. There are many definitions of terrorism, and none of them are universally accepted. The United States Department of State defined terrorism in 2003 as 'premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.' Domestic terrorism or homegrown terrorism is a form of terrorism in which victims 'within a country are targeted by a perpetrator with the same citizenship' as the victims. There are many definitions of terrorism, and none of them are universally accepted. The United States Department of State defined terrorism in 2003 as 'premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.' While there are many potential definitions of domestic terrorism, it is largely defined as terrorism in which the perpetrator targets his/her own country. Enders defines domestic terrorism as 'homegrown in which the venue, target, and perpetrators are all from the same country.' The term “homegrown terrorism” stems from jihadi terrorism against Westerners. Wilner and Dobouloz described homegrown terrorism as 'autonomously organized radicalized Westerners with little direct assistance from transnational networks, usually organized within the home or host country, and targets fellow nationals.' The Congressional Research Service report, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combatting a Complex Threat, describes homegrown terrorism as a “terrorist activity or plots perpetuated within the United States or abroad by American citizens, permanent legal residents, or visitors radicalized largely within the United States.” Under the 2001 USA Patriot Act, domestic terrorism is defined as 'activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.' This definition is made for the purposes of authorizing law enforcement investigations. While international terrorism ('acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries') is a defined crime in federal law, no federal criminal offense exists which is referred to as 'domestic terrorism'. Acts of domestic terrorism are charged under specific laws, such as killing federal agents or 'attempting to use explosives to destroy a building in interstate commerce'. Homegrown terrorism is not new to the world. Security analysts have argued that after the end of the Cold War, military conflicts have increasingly involved violent non-state actors carrying out asymmetric warfare, of which terror attacks are one part. The United States has uncovered a number of alleged terrorist plots that have been successfully suppressed through domestic intelligence and law enforcement. The United States has begun to account for the threat of homegrown terrorism, as shown by increased volume of literature on the subject in recent years and increased number of terrorist websites since Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, began posting beheading videos in 2003. A July 2009 document by the FBI estimated that there were roughly 15,000 websites and web forums that support terrorist activities, with around 10,000 of them actively maintained. 80% of these sites are on U.S.-based servers. According to the Congressional Research Service’s study, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combatting a Complex Threat, between May 2009 and November 2010, law enforcement made arrests related to 22 homegrown jihadist-inspired terror plots by American citizens or legal residents of the U.S. This is a significant increase over the 21 plots caught in the seven interim years after the September 11 attacks. During these seven years, two plots resulted in attacks, compared to the two attacks between May 2009 and November 2010, which resulted in 14 deaths. This spike post-May 2009 shows that some Americans are susceptible to ideologies that support a violent form of jihad. Roughly one-quarter of these plots have been linked to major international terrorist groups but an increasing number of Americans are holding high-level operational roles in these terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups. The former CIA Director Michael Hayden called homegrown terrorism the more serious threat faced by American citizens today. The UK, likewise, considers homegrown terrorism to be a considerable threat. On June 6, 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron announced a wide-ranging strategy to prevent British citizens from being radicalized into becoming terrorists while at university. The strategy is intended to prevent extremist speakers or groups from coming to universities. On July 23, 2019, Christopher A. Wray, the head of the FBI, said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the agency had made around 100 domestic terrorism arrests since October 1, 2018, and that the majority of them were connected in some way with white supremacy. Wray said that the Bureau was 'aggressively pursuing using both counterterrorism resources and criminal investigative resources and partnering closely with our state and local partners,' but said that it was focused on the violence itself and not on its ideological basis. A similar number of arrests had been made for instances of international terrorism. In the past, Wray has said that white supremacy was a significant and 'pervasive' threat to the U.S. Domestic terrorism is often linked to 'lone wolf' terrorism. Sociologist Ramón Spaaij defines lone wolf terrorism as an act of terrorism committed by one person who 'acts on his or her own without orders from—or even connections to an organization'. From the late 20th to the early 21st centuries, lone wolf terrorism in the United States has primarily been associated with white supremacy, Islamic fundamentalism, anti-social, and anti-government extremists such as Charles Whitman, Tim McVeigh, Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, Wade Michael Page, Ted Kaczynski, Eric Rudolph, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, James Holmes, Stephen Paddock, Omar Mateen, and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Many lone wolves share a common trait in that they seek acceptance from other groups but are typically met with rejection. In their 2007 book Hunting the American Terrorist former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Terry Turchie and former FBI special agent Kathleen Puckett described six criteria to define a lone wolf: