National Security Watch: 60 RIGHT-WING terror plots foiled

[Ian David]

National Security Watch: 60 RIGHT WING terror plots foiled

In the 10 years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots have been uncovered in the United States, according to an upcoming report by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. The plots, all foiled by law enforcement, reportedly included violent plans by antigovernment militia groups, racist skinhead organizations, and Ku Klux Klan members to use various types of chemical bombs and other weapons.

The plots demonstrate that the Department of Homeland Security still needs to closely monitor right-wing groups, says Heidi Beirich, with the Intelligence Project. The DHS was criticized by hate-group experts in April when an internal planning document on domestic terrorist threats was leaked to the press. The DHS report listed radical leftist groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, which have been involved in numerous arson cases, but not violent right-wing militia and skinhead groups.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, is calling for the DHS to do more to fight right-wing domestic terror groups and to work more closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "The FBI has a considerably more thorough view of domestic terrorism than DHS," says Thompson. The DHS has said that the internal document was never intended to be made public and does not represent all its assessments on domestic terrorism.

Some of the more recent right-wing terror plots listed in the Intelligence Project report include:

More:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050712/12natsec.htm

Department of Homeland Security Is Blind to Right Wing Terror Threat

Infoshop News
Saturday, July 16 2005 @ 01:24 PM PDT
Contributed by: Oread Daily
Views: 275



Back in April, my friend Bill Berkowitz wrote a column at Working for Change which asked the question, �Ten years after Oklahoma City, why doesn't the Department of Homeland Security see America's homegrown right-wing terrorists as a major threat?�

Now US News World Report is asking the same question.

<snip>

Berkowitz back in April wrote that Mike German, a 16-year undercover agent for the FBI who spent most of his career infiltrating radical right-wing groups told the Congressional Quarterly in regards to right wing terrorists and groups, "They are still a threat, and they will continue to be a threat. If for some reason the government no longer considers them a threat, I think they will regret that," said German, who left the FBI last year. "Hopefully it's an oversight."

Meanwhile, for homegrown terrorists, Homeland Security continues to only point at groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Interesting.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security has taken note of this. He tells the Memphis Commercial Appeal that it's a mistake for the administration to list property-damaging environmental activists as "eco-terrorists" but omit the threat from right-wing militia "Patriots" like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, anti-government tax protesters or white supremacists -- groups that have already proven they're dangerous.

More:
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050716132429449

Right-wing terror movements omitted from DHS terrorist list

Congressional Quarterly - March 28, 2005
By Justin Rood

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not list right-wing domestic terrorists and terrorist groups on a document that appears to be an internal list of threats to the nation’s security.

According to the list — part of a draft planning document obtained by CQ Homeland Security — between now and 2011 DHS expects to contend primarily with adversaries such as al Qaeda and other foreign entities affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, as well as domestic radical Islamist groups.

<snip>

Priorities Questioned

The document lists several groups or sources of radical violence that DHS does not consider threats to the homeland.

Lebanese Hizballah and various Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad, are unlikely to attack the United States, the report’s authors conclude.

Several high-profile terror prosecutions, including cases against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation and Florida professor Sami al-Arian, rest on their connection to such groups.

“Why are we expending so many resources targeting people who have allegedly provided support to groups that don’t threaten us?” asked David Cole, a professor of law at Georgetown University and a frequent critic of the U.S. government’s war on terror. “How does that make us safer?”

State-sponsored terrorism also is not an immediate concern to the department, according to the document. “In the post 9/11 environment, countries do not appear to be facilitating or supporting terrorist groups intent on striking the U.S. homeland,” it reads. In fact, of all the countries designated state sponsors of terrorism, only Iran “appears to have the possible future motivation” to use terrorist groups to plot against the United States.

More:
http://www.archives2005.ghazali.net/html/right_wing_terror.html

[Village Idiot]

1. I often find it strange that only Muslims...

are called "terrorists" in the media, while RW Terrorists are almost always called "Christian Fundementalists" or "RW Extremists..."
It's a sad fact.

[maxsolomon]

2. no, environmentalists are called terrorists, too.

eco-terror is torching Hummers & McMansions.

but the recent right-wing asshole, who killed people, was just a "bomber".