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The face of violent extremism: 20 years after 9/11

Are extremist ideologies on the decline? The answer would be a no

USA-ELECTION/TRUMP

Twenty years have passed since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US, that killed over 3,000 people and US President George W Bush launched the “War on Terror.” With the Taliban now back in power in Afghanistan, it’s important to gauge a more global picture of how the US fared in the fight on violent extremism. Are we safer around the world now than we were then? Did the counterterrorism policies, programs and national interventions enacted after 9/11 lessen and prevent more violent acts from being carried out? Are extremist ideologies on the decline?

Most experts would agree that the answer to these questions is a resounding, “No”.

“For 20 years, the goalposts kept changing,” Bilal Y Saab, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank and former senior advisor to the US Pentagon said in an interview last week. While referring specifically to the US intervention in Afghanistan, this statement illustrates the larger issue now faced by US authorities: home-grown extremism. Authorities in the US have been on heightened alert over the past few weeks due to a significant increase of online activity by white supremacists and right-wing extremists who seem to have been invigorated by the Taliban’s activities following the withdrawal of US troops.  

Dubbing the Taliban activities as a "lesson in love for the homeland, for freedom, and religion," activity by the far-right right-wing users have risen to levels similar to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online activity by extremist organizations, as reported by CNN. SITE also reports that neo-Nazi and violent accelerationists -- who hope to provoke what they see as an inevitable “race war” resulting in Whites-only nations in North America and Europe--are praising the Taliban for its anti-Semitism, homophobia, and severe restrictions on women's freedom.  

"The fact that the Taliban at the end of the day could claim victory over such a world power is something that white supremacists are taking note of," said Joanna Mendleson, Associate Director of the Center on Extremism. Similar reports of QAnon and neo-Nazi groups lauding the violent Myanmar military coup have also surfaced.

Experts call this “symbiotic extremism,” where extremist groups admire and emulate one another’s actions despite often obvious ideological differences. The far-right is known for being deeply anti-Muslim and Islamophobic. Historically, all extremist groups have the potential to cause mass violence, causality, instil fear and garner wider support. And while extremism takes many forms across nations, religions, parties and ideologies, Mendelson, believes the US seems to be in a climate now where “extremists have become emboldened.” From the Unite the Right rally in 2017 through the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, there is an increased tendency to “openly display their hate.” 

Since 9/11, white supremacists and other far-right extremists have been responsible for almost three times as many attacks on US soil as Islamic terrorists. From 2009 through 2018, the far-right has been responsible for 73 per cent of domestic extremist-related fatalities, according to a 2019 study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). But, successive US administrations have spent most of the last two decades putting the majority of their resources towards investigating Muslims, both in the US and abroad. In 2019, the FBI said 80 per cent of its counter-terrorism agents were focused on international terrorism, with 20 per cent devoted to domestic terrorism.

It seems the narrative is changing within the Biden administration. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told lawmakers in March 2021 that “domestic violent extremism is the greatest threat to the United States.” He stated the threat comes from so-called lone wolves, or individuals with loose ideological associations. It’s when these lone wolves become organized and when ideologies become more uniform that we must pay closer attention.  

Extremist trends currently include a huge increase in propaganda distribution, extensive use of technology, elevation of online hate into calls for action, conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns, continued concentration on Jews as the root of many problems, and growing racism and xenophobia. But the most binding and central aspect of violent extremist groups, according to a Special Report on Extremism conducted by the United Nations Development Program, is misogyny and control of women. 

“We’re not safer,” says Saab. “I think that the threat has metastasized. And that's the tragedy of this whole thing, that 20 years later, the one core priority that we've always focused on has not been met”. While results won’t be visible for a while, we can only hope that Biden’s new strategy of addressing domestic extremism isn’t a case of too-little or too-late. 
 

Kelsey LeBrun Keswani is the co-founder of RAIN (Refugee Assistance and Information Network). Currently, she is a PhD candidate for political science at Institute of Social Sciences University of Lisbon, Portugal.

 

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