The Department of Homeland Security has issued a national terrorism warning warning that violent domestic extremists could attack in the coming weeks, encouraged by the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
DHS said in a warning on Wednesday that violent extremists opposed to the government and the presidential transition “could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.” The department said it had no evidence of a specific conspiracy.
The DHS release was part of a public alert called a National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin.
The warning is the first from the department in about a year. The last such bulletin from DHS came in January 2020 and warned about Iran’s potential to carry out cyber attacks. DHS in particular did not issue a warning ahead of the planned January 6 rally in Washington, DC, which degenerated into a siege of the mob at the Capitol, despite public talks online that extremists were planning it.
Wednesday’s warning described a series of factors in the recent past that have increased the potential for violence among US extremists.
Violent extremists are “motivated by a range of issues, including anger over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results and the use of the police,” the warning said. The warning also cited opposition to immigration, citing a motivating factor in the death of a white supremacist of 23 people in El Paso, Texas, in 2019.
DHS said it was “concerned that the same drivers of violence will remain until early 2021 and some [domestic violent extremists] may be encouraged by the violation of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021, to target elected officials and government facilities. ”
“This is a bulletin that had to be issued at the end of December,” said Elizabeth Neumann, a former DHS terrorist officer who served during the Trump administration, and is critical of how the department approached the issue. “I am grateful that the new team at DHS quickly assessed the available intelligence and performed their legal duty to warn the public about the threatening environment we are facing.”
Since the January 6 riots, far-right groups have increasingly used violent rhetoric in online chats, sharing material for making bombs and guerrilla tactics and calling for asymmetric warfare with the government, according to Soufan group researchers, a non-partisan center that follows extremist movements.
“There is open talk of war, that the war is coming, that ‘2021 will be our year,'” said Mollie Saltskog, an analyst at the Soufan Group. “It’s all in the aftermath of January 6.”
The Proud Boys, a far-right group, tried to play their part in the riot of Capitol. An WSJ investigation shows that Proud Boys were in the forefront at many of the most important moments. Photo illustration: Laura Kammermann
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