Homegrown terrorism in the United States
Homegrown terrorism in the United States refers to acts of terrorism committed by individuals who are citizens or legal residents, often influenced by radical ideologies or groups. This phenomenon has gained significant attention following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, which catalyzed a reassessment of terrorism prevention strategies. Historically, one of the most notable incidents was the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh, motivated by grievances against government actions.
Since 9/11, numerous high-profile cases have been documented, including the Fort Hood shooting by Nidal Hasan and the Boston Marathon bombing by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. While much media focus has been on Islamic extremism, there has also been a rise in violence from right-wing extremists, particularly those motivated by White supremacy. Incidents like the shooting at a Sikh temple and the Charleston church massacre highlight this troubling trend.
As the threat landscape evolves, US officials have increasingly recognized the dangers posed by domestic terrorists, particularly those espousing racially or ethnically motivated violence. In response, the government has implemented strategies to combat domestic terrorism, which has seen a marked increase in related investigations in recent years. This complex issue reflects broader societal tensions and underscores the challenges faced by law enforcement in addressing various forms of extremism.
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Homegrown terrorism in the United States
Homegrown terrorism is a dilemma confronted by nations in which individuals committing or plotting to commit terrorist acts are either citizens or legal residents. Individuals considered homegrown terrorists often have ties to, or at least a familiarity with, radical groups connected via local communities or the internet. In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, incidents of homegrown terrorism have spiked in the United States, and several high-profile cases have led law enforcement and the US government to reassess terrorism-prevention policies.
Overview
Perhaps the best-known occurrence of homegrown terrorism in the United States prior to September 11 is the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by Timothy McVeigh; McVeigh’s primary accomplice was Terry Nichols. Angered and disillusioned by the US government’s handling of the deadly raid on the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, in 1993, and the previous year’s government siege of Randy Weaver’s compound in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, McVeigh detonated bombs that killed nearly two hundred people.
While others have been thwarted, several high-profile acts of homegrown terrorism have been carried out since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania. In 2002, Jose Padilla, a US citizen returning from Pakistan, was detained in Chicago and accused of playing a role in a plan to detonate a “dirty bomb”—a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material. In 2008, Padilla received a seventeen-year prison sentence. In 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen, planned to bomb Times Square in New York City. His scheme was foiled and he received a life sentence in prison.
While in these two examples authorities averted terrorist acts, in other cases, homegrown terrorists carried out their plans. In 2009, Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, killed thirteen people during a shooting rampage on the Army base at Fort Hood, Texas. In 2013, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the latter of whom was a naturalized US citizen, allegedly detonated two bombs during the Boston Marathon, killing three and creating chaos in the streets. In 2015, Dzhokhar was sentenced to death for his role in the bombing (Tamerlan had been killed by police in the aftermath). In 2016, Omar Mateen, an Afghan American man, attacked the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing forty-nine people before police killed him in a shootout. Mateen was believed to have targeted the nightclub due to its popularity with Orlando's LGBTQ+ community. While Mateen had professed an allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a fundamentalist terror organization, US law enforcement officials later determined that he had acted alone rather than as part of an organized cell.
After 9/11, media and law enforcement attention on homegrown terrorism was often focused on attacks carried out by jihadists or those with some affiliation to religious extremism. However, often neglected in discussions of homegrown terrorism at that time were attacks carried out by right-wing extremists against either minority groups or police or government officials, despite the occurrence of a number of deadly attacks connected to right-wing ideologies, in particular White supremacy. For example, in 2012, neo-Nazi Wade Michael Page opened fire at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, killing six people. In 2015, twenty-one-year-old White supremacist Dylann Roof entered the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and shot and killed nine Black Americans during a prayer meeting. Roof later stated that his intention was to start a race war.
Throughout the remainder of the 2010s and early 2020s, government and law enforcement officials in the US began paying increased attention to the risks posed by right-wing extremist groups and individuals, in particular White supremacists. In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described White supremacist terrorists as the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland,” citing data which determined that, in recent years, these individuals had been responsible for more deaths than other types of domestic terrorists. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, out of the twenty-nine people killed by extremists in the US in 2021, twenty-six were killed by right-wing extremists. While some of these deaths were isolated incidents, others were large-scale attacks in which multiple people were killed. For example, in August 2019, a shooting targeting Latino Americans at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas, claimed twenty-three lives, and in May 2022, a White supremacist shot and killed ten Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
While White supremacist groups often targeted marginalized communities, other right-wing groups and individuals focused their efforts on targeting law enforcement officers or other government agencies. This trend gained increased attention after a number of right-wing extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers, were involved in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Because of the recognized rise in both racially or ethnically motivated and anti-government or anti-authority acts of domestic terrorism, the administration of President Joe Biden issued the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism later that year. In 2023, the Government Accountability Office reported that domestic terrorism–related investigations had increased by 357 percent between 2013 and 2023.
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