The bombing and massacre in Oslo raise the question of the danger of right-wing extremism in America. Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a list of right-wing terror plots and arrests of the last fifteen years. Here it is.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/terror-from-the-right?ondntsrc=MBC110770NOE&newsletter=newsgen-20110726
Accessed July 26,2011
[As the article is too long to reproduce in this blog, here are just the items from the last two years.]
June 12, 2009
Shawna Forde — the executive director of Minutemen American Defense (MAD), an anti-immigrant vigilante group that conducts "citizen patrols" on the Arizona-Mexico border — is charged with two counts of first-degree murder for her alleged role in the slayings of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter in Arivaca, Ariz. Forde allegedly orchestrated the May 30 home invasion because she believed the man was a narcotics trafficker and wanted to steal drugs and cash to fund her group. Authorities say the murders, including the killing of the child, were part of the plan. Also arrested and charged with murder are the alleged triggerman, MAD Operations Director Jason Eugene "Gunny" Bush, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, a local member of MAD. Authorities say that Bush had ties to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations in Idaho, and that Forde has spoken of recruiting its members.
June 25, 2009
Longtime white supremacist Dennis Mahon and his brother Daniel are indicted in Arizona in connection with a mail bomb sent in 2004 to a diversity office in Scottsdale that injured three people. Mahon, formerly tied to the neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance (WAR) group, allegedly left a phone message at the office saying that "the White Aryan Resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There's a few white people who are standing up." In a related raid, agents search the Indiana home of Tom Metzger, founder of WAR, but he is not arrested. On the same day, white supremacist Robert Joos is arrested in rural Missouri, apparently because phone records show that Dennis Mahon's first call after the mail bombing was to Joos' cell phone. Joos is charged with being a felon in possession of firearms.
Oct. 28, 2009
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, identified by authorities as a member of a black Muslim group hoping to create an Islamic state within U.S. borders, is shot dead at a warehouse in Dearborn, Mich., after he fires at FBI agents trying to arrest him on conspiracy and weapons charges. The FBI says Abdulla encouraged violence against the United States, adding that 10 other group members are being sought.
Feb. 18, 2010
Joseph Andrew Stack, who had earlier attended meetings of radical anti-tax groups in California, sets fire to his own house and then flies his single-engine plane into an Austin, Texas, building housing IRS offices. Stack and an IRS manager are killed, and 13 others are injured. Stack leaves a long online rant about the IRS and the tax code, politicians and corporations.
March 25, 2010
A man later identified as Brody James Whitaker opens fire on two Florida state troopers during a routine traffic stop on I-75 in Sumter County. Whitaker flees, crashing his vehicle and continuing on foot. He is arrested two weeks later in Connecticut, where he challenges the authority of a judge and declares himself a “sovereign,” not American, citizen. Sovereigns typically believe that police have no right to regulate road travel. Whitaker is later extradited to Florida to face charges of assaulting and fleeing from a police officer.
March 27-28, 2010
Nine members of the Hutaree Militia are arrested in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and charged with seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. The group, whose website said it was preparing for the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ, allegedly planned to murder a Michigan police officer, then use bombs and homemade missiles to kill other officers attending the funeral, all in a bid to set off a war with the government.
April 15, 2010
Matthew Fairfield, who is president of a local chapter of an antigovernment “Patriot” organization called the Oath Keepers, is indicted on 28 explosives charges, 25 counts of receiving stolen property and one count of possessing criminal tools. Authorities searching his home discover a napalm bomb built by Fairfield, along with a computer carrying child pornography. Fairfield later pleads guilty to explosives charges, but still faces trial on other counts.
April 30, 2010
Darren Huff, an Oath Keeper from Georgia, is arrested and charged with planning the armed takeover of a Madisonville, Tenn., courthouse and “arrest” of 24 local, state and federal officials. Authorities say Duff was angry about the April 1 arrest there of Walter Francis Fitzpatrick III, a leader of the far-right American Grand Jury movement that seeks to have grand juries indict President Obama for treason. Several others in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement accuse Duff of white supremacist and anti-Semitic attitudes in Internet postings.
May 10, 2010
Sandlin Matthew Smith detonates a pipe bomb at a rear entrance to a mosque in Jacksonville, Fla., while worshippers are inside. Armed only with a fuzzy videotape, authorities only identify Smith, based on talking to witnesses to whom he admits the attack, a year later. They track Smith, a bus driver from Julington Creek, Fla., to a campsite near Fairview, Okla., where he resists arrest with a gun and is killed. A search of Smith’s two homes turns up explosive materials.
May 20, 2010
A father and son team of “sovereign citizens” who believe police have no right to regulate road travel murder West Memphis, Ark., police officers Robert Brandon Paudert, 39, and Thomas William “Bill” Evans, 38, during a routine traffic stop on an I-40 exit ramp. The incident begins when Jerry Kane, 45, starts to argue with the officers over his bogus vehicle paperwork and then pushes Evans into a roadside ditch. Kane’s 16-year-old son then kills both officers with an AK-47 before the pair flees. Authorities catch up with them about 45 minutes later. In the ensuing shootout, two more officers are badly wounded and both Kanes are killed. The pair had been traveling the country offering seminars in bogus sovereign techniques for avoiding foreclosure and related matters.
June 8, 2010
A bomb packed into a soda can is planted outside Osage Baptist Church in Carroll City, Ark., where a polling station for a Democratic Senate primary runoff between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is located. The device does not explode, although authorities say it was capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. Officials later receive a tip from contractors who hired to clean out the foreclosed home of self-described “Patriot” Mark Krause, where they find bomb-making materials, manuals, and materials related to antigovernment militias. Krause, who earlier posted antigovernment messages to MySpace, eventually is arrested in Seattle.
July 18, 2010
An unemployed parolee with two bank robbery convictions, apparently enraged at liberals and what he sees as the “left-wing agenda” of Congress, allegedly opens fire on California Highway Patrol troopers who pull him over in Oakland. No one is killed, but two troopers are slightly injured and Byron Williams is shot in the arms and legs. Williams allegedly later tells authorities that he was on his way to attack offices of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Tides Foundation, a liberal organization that, although little known to most Americans, has been repeatedly pilloried on air by Fox News host Glenn Beck.
July 21, 2010
Attorney Todd Getgen is shot to death at a gun range in Cumberland County, Penn., and his weapon, a silenced AR-15 rifle, is stolen. Authorities arrest prison guard Raymond Peake nine days later, saying Peake was trying to accumulate weapons for an unnamed organization that intended to overthrow the government. Fellow prison guard Thomas Tuso is also arrested for allegedly helping Peake hide Getgen’s custom-built weapon.
Sept. 2, 2010
A pipe bomb is thrown through the window of a closed Planned Parenthood clinic in Madera, Calif., along with a note that reads, “Murder our children? We have a ‘choice’ too.” The note is signed ANB, apparently short for the American Nationalist Brotherhood. Six months later, law enforcement officials arrest school bus driver Donny Eugene Mower, who allegedly also threatened a local Islamic Center and has the word “Peckerwood,” a reference to a white supremacist gang, tattooed on his chest. Mower reportedly confesses to the attack.
Sept. 7, 2010
The FBI arrests 26-year-old Justin Carl Moose, a self-described “freedom fighter” and “Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden,” for allegedly planning to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. After earlier receiving tips that Moose was posting threats of violence against abortion providers and information about explosives on his Facebook page, the FBI set up a sting operation to capture him. Moose later pleads guilty to distributing information on manufacturing and use of an explosive and is sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Sept. 19, 2010
An antigovernment extremist with ties to the separatist Republic of Texas organization allegedly opens fire on an oil company worker and two sheriff’s deputies who show up at White’s property in West Odessa, Texas, to access an oil well to which the company has rights. Victor White, 55, allegedly wounds all three men before they retreat, and a 22-hour standoff follows. White eventually surrenders and is charged with three counts of attempted capital murder of a peace officer, one count of attempted capital murder, and aggravated assault.
Jan. 14, 2011
Federal agents in Arizona arrest Jeffery Harbin, a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, for allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he apparently intended to supply to anti-immigration groups patrolling the Mexican border. A prosecutor says that Harbin constructed the devices, using model rocket engines and aluminum power, "in such a way as to maximize human carnage." Harbin is indicted on two counts of possessing a destructive device and a third of transporting destructive devices. Jeffery Harbin is the son of Jerry Harbin, a Phoenix-area activist vith past ties to the neo-Nazi National Alliance and the racist Council of Conservative Citizens.
Jan. 17, 2011
Bomb technicians defuse a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) found in a backpack along the Spokane, Wash., route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with 1,500 marchers. Using forensic clues found in the dismantled bomb, officials about two months later identify and arrest Kevin William Harpham, a long-time neo-Nazi. Harpham had posted more than 1,000 messages to the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network since 2004, when he was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Harpham also had contributed to the white supremacist Aryan Alternative newspaper. He is indicted on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of possessing an IED. Later, federal hate crime charges are added.
March 10, 2011
Six members of the antigovernment Alaska Peacemakers Militia, including its leader Francis Schaeffer Cox, are arrested and charged with plotting to kill or kidnap state troopers and a Fairbanks judge. The group already has a large cache of weapons, including a .50-caliber machine gun and grenades and a grenade launcher. Cox earlier identified himself as a “sovereign citizen.”
May 14, 2011
Three masked men break into the Madrasah Islamiah, an Islamic center in Houston, and douse prayer rugs with gasoline in an apparent attempt to burn the center down. Images of the men are captured on surveillance cameras, but they are not identified. The fire is put out before doing major damage.
If you go to the web site mentioned above, you can download the full information as a PDF file. I recommend keeping this information to show people who may be skeptical that there is any non-Muslim terrorist threat in the USA.