The district is "likely an attractive target" for the boogaloo movement and other groups, the intelligence assessment warns.
The Trump administration is warning law enforcement and public safety officials that a far-right extremist movement known as “boogaloo” may be setting its sights on the nation’s capital.
Separately on Friday, DHS published its own intelligence note assessing that “domestic terrorists advocating for the boogaloo very likely will take advantage of any regional or national situation involving heightened fear and tensions to promote their violent extremist ideology and call supporters to action.”
And the NTIC assessment is the first known government confirmation that suspected “violent adherents of the boogaloo ideology” may reside in D.C. and have an abundance of potential targets. “It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left,” Trump tweeted on May 30. “Don’t lay the blame on others!” Barr similarly homed in on the anti-fascist protest movement the following day, in a statement presented from the Department of Justice in D.C.: “The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly.
Experts on far-right violence and extremism say the president and attorney general’s rhetoric is political, and that the real threat has been laid out in the federal charges filed in the last month and the federal alerts, such as from NTIC and DHS, being sent to law enforcement warning of far-right violence.
But singling out antifa is similarly “dangerous and foolish,” said J.J. McNab, an expert on violent political extremism and a research fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism. “There is nothing to back it up. I don’t think that if they called out these right-wing groups it’d make much of a difference, but now anyone who wears black [at these protests] has a target on their back,” McNab said, referring to antifa sympathizers’ tendency to wear all black.
“There is a clear link between far-right groups and gun culture that doesn't really exist in the culture of individuals who identify with the antifa movement,” Blazakis noted. “That’s a key distinguishing feature. There is a potential shared narrative between boogaloo and antifa, given the anti-government bent. But the way they project the threat is different.”
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Far-right 'boogaloo' extremists may 'target' Washington, DC, intelligence assessments say - Business InsiderBusiness Insider is a fast-growing business site with deep financial, media, tech, and other industry verticals. Launched in 2007, the site is now the largest business news site on the web.
Read more »
Protesters Topple and Burn Only Confederate Statue in Washington, D.C. - WSJ.comThe latest developments on the protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, calls for policing reform, the Black Lives Matter movement and race in America.
Read more »
Vehicle Attacks Rise As Extremists Target ProtestersRight-wing extremists are turning cars into weapons, with reports of 50 vehicle-ramming incidents since protests erupted nationwide in late May.
Read more »
China unveils details of national security law with sweeping new powers over Hong KongChina unveils details of its draft security law for Hong Kong, paving the way for one of the most profound changes to the governing of the semi-autonomous territory since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Read more »