by: Oren Segal July 21, 2016 Court proceedings have indicated that Arizona resident Mahin Khan, arrested on July 1 for allegedly plotting to bomb a DMV on behalf of ISIS and the Pakistani Taliban, had considered directing his attack against a local Jewish Community Center (JCC) before choosing the DMV as his final target. His planning, as well as anti-Semitic statements he made, serve as a critical reminder of the nexus between anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism. Khan had allegedly…

by: Oren Segal July 19, 2016 Since January 2009, ADL has tracked 70 incidents in which shots were fired between police and domestic ideological extremists.  Eighty-four percent of those involved were purveyors of extreme right-wing ideologies.  The July 17 attack on Baton Rouge police marks the ninth such incident this year.  With nine incidents year-to-date, verses a full-year average of 8.5 for the past seven years (2009-2015), these incidents are occurring at an alarming…

by: Mark Pitcavage July 18, 2016   After authorities identified Gavin Eugene Long as the man who shot and killed three police officers from Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge on July 17, unconfirmed media reports claimed that Long (who also used the name Cosmo Setepenra) had connections with the anti-government extremist sovereign citizen movement. Sovereign citizens believe that a conspiracy subverted and replaced the original U.S. government with an illegitimate “de…

by: Oren Segal July 15, 2016 The use of a vehicle to kill civilians in yesterday’s apparent terror attack in Nice, France, serves as a reminder of how terrorist groups and their supporters encourage their adherents to carry out attacks with common resources. In addition to run-over style attacks, terrorists have encouraged the use of common items such as household products to make bombs, as well as various other tactics in their online magazines, speeches and other propaganda. The…

by: Oren Segal July 14, 2016 The lead­ers of the New Black Pan­ther Party (NBPP), the largest orga­nized anti-Semitic and racist Black mil­i­tant group in Amer­ica, will be in Cleveland July 14-17 ahead of the Republican convention, where they will likely inflam­e the already tense sit­u­a­tion fol­low­ing the fatal shoot­ings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota and the killing of five police officers in Dallas. …

by: Jonathan Greenblatt July 07, 2016 This blog originally appeared in Medium. As we approach the first anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) it is an appropriate time to reassess the merits of the deal. ADL was among the nuclear deal’s critics. Beyond the nuclear restraints it would impose on Iran, our concern is that it would normalize an expansionist, militant regime whose unrepentant and fundamentalist ideology was not tamed by the deal. Unlike…

by: Marilyn Mayo June 28, 2016 A coterie of racist skinheads and other white supremacists staged a rally at the state capitol in Sacramento, California, this past weekend, a rally that degenerated into a bloody brawl when the racists were attacked by a larger group of left-wing counter-demonstrators. At least 10 people were reportedly injured. Both sides came prepared for a fight, after a previous brawl in southern California earlier in the year, and both sides declared “success&rdquo…

by: Oren Segal June 27, 2016 Al Malahem media, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)’s propaganda wing, released a pamphlet on June 23 that praised the Orlando shooting and provided suggestions for copying it and making additional attacks both more lethal and better suited to AQAP’s propaganda aims. The four-page PDF pamphlet, which was released on Telegram, was titled “Inspire Guide: Orlando Operation,” and included multiple references to Inspire magazine, AQAP…

by: Marilyn Mayo June 24, 2016 The recent attack on the les­bian, gay, bisex­ual and trans­gen­der (LGBT) com­mu­nity in Orlando that left 49 dead and more than 50 wounded is yet another example of law enforcement standing in the line of fire in the fight against domestic extremism. From 2009 to the present, at least 64 members of law enforcement have been shot by domestic extremists--including anti-government extrem­ists, white suprema­cists, domes­tic Mus…

by: Oren Segal June 23, 2016   Akram Musleh, an 18-year-old resident of Brownsburg, Indiana, was arrested on June 21 for attempting to travel to join ISIS. Court documents indicate that Musleh had been engaging with terrorist propaganda since at least 2013, when Musleh was a 15-year-old high school student. According to authorities, the FBI first came into contact with Musleh after it was discovered that he posted three videos of Anwar al-Awlaki to YouTube in August 2013…

by: Mark Pitcavage June 22, 2016   An analyst with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis was arrested after a June 9 incident at DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C., when security personnel performing random security checks allegedly discovered that Jonathan Wienke was carrying a concealed handgun, as well as a knife, pepper spray, handcuffs, and other items. Wienke was charged with carrying a pistol without a license. However,…

by: Mark Pitcavage June 17, 2016   On June 14, Pennsylvania authorities caught and arrested a fugitive accused of having shot and killed three of his neighbors in West Virginia the previous day. Erick Shute, 29, who allegedly had a long-running series of disputes with the neighbors, reportedly attacked the three (and a fourth who escaped) over a conflict about firewood. Shute was a minor public figure as the vocalist for the longstanding death metal band Pyrexia, with which he…

by: Marilyn Mayo June 16, 2016 In the wake of the brutal terrorist attack by Omar Mateen that killed 49 members of the LGBT community and wounded 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, communities held vigils across the country to express solidarity with the victims. In marked contrast to the love and support shown by people around the world, haters voiced anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT sentiment and promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the event. Not surprisingly,…

by: Oren Segal June 15, 2016 Update - 9/27/16: Newly released information indicates that Mateen told a hostage negotiator during the standoff that his attack was inspired by the death of an ISIS commander. This indicates that Mateen’s support of ISIS may have been more influential in his decision than was previously known. This weekend’s shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 dead and 52 people injured, has reinvigorated debate surrounding the…

by: Oren Segal June 15, 2016 The claim by Orlando shooter Omar Mateen that he acted on behalf of ISIS in perpetrating a shooting at a gay club draws attention to the role of anti-gay sentiment in Islamic extremist ideology and propaganda. ADL analyzed past issues of Dabiq, ISIS’s English language magazine, and Inspire magazine, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)’s English-language magazine, to determine the scope of anti-gay rhetoric and threat in those publications…

by: Jinnie Array June 14, 2016 The unspeakable tragedy that took place at the Pulse Club in Orlando, FL in the early morning of June 12 brings with it a wide range of emotions for people across the country and world. Those feelings include anger, sorrow, loss, hopelessness, horror, fear, rage and also—a sense of powerlessness. It is easy to feel powerless when you think there is nothing you can do: nothing you can do about the hate, the gun violence, the terrorism and the extremist…

by: Oren Segal May 24, 2016 NBC recently released the names of 15 U.S. residents who allegedly traveled to join ISIS since 2013. The names had been provided to the network by an individual who claimed to be a defector from ISIS and were reportedly verified by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center and other counterterrorism specialists. While three of the individuals on the list – Yusuf Jama, and Douglas McCain – had already been publicly known, the other 12 had not. The list…

by: Oren Segal May 19, 2016 The 15th issue of Inspire, Al Qaeda in the Ara­bian Penin­sula (AQAP)’s Eng­lish lan­guage mag­a­zine, released on May 14, provides readers with instructions for murdering “the intelligentsia, economic and influential personalities of America.” Such attacks, claims the magazine, are “easy options that do not require huge efforts or man power, but the result is parallel to the big operations or…