Terrorism, Domestic

Abstract

Abstract While the United States has suffered less than the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, and Italy from international terrorism, it has suffered a significant amount of terrorism in the past half‐century, most of which has been domestic. Terrorist attacks in the United States have involved limited violence by small ideological groups, political extremists, and foreign nationals. These groups range along the classical ideological continuum from extreme right‐wing groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Order, the Aryan Nations, and the Christian Identity Movement, to the left‐wing ones represented by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), Weather Underground, and Black Panthers. From 1954 to 2000, domestic terrorism accounted for about 80% of all terrorist incidents and 88% of all fatalities. However, since September 11, 2001, most domestic terrorism has gone unnoticed. There are several potential reasons for the lack of notoriety in addressing domestic terrorism, including the debate in defining domestic terrorism, complicated official record‐keeping, and a new‐found focus on international terrorism by the Homeland Security Department. It is important to understand past threats to counter modern domestic terrorist attacks.