Animal Rights Groups and Ecology Militants Make DHS Terrorist List, Right-Wing V

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http://www.cq.com/corp/show.do?page=crawford/20050325_homeland

 

 

Congressional Quarterly

 

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY – INTELLIGENCE

March 25, 2005 – 9:43 p.m.

Animal Rights Groups and Ecology Militants Make DHS Terrorist List,

Right-Wing Vigilantes Omitted

By Justin Rood, CQ Staff

 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not list right-wing

domestic terrorists and terrorist groups on a document that appears to

be an internal list of threats to the nation's security.

 

According to the list — part of a draft planning document obtained by

CQ Homeland Security — between now and 2011 DHS expects to contend

primarily with adversaries such as al Qaeda and other foreign entities

affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, as well as domestic

radical Islamist groups.

 

It also lists left-wing domestic groups, such as the Animal Liberation

Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), as terrorist

threats, but it does not mention anti-government groups, white

supremacists and other radical right-wing movements, which have staged

numerous terrorist attacks that have killed scores of Americans.

Recent attacks on cars, businesses and property in Virginia, Oregon

and California have been attributed to ELF.

 

DHS did not respond to repeated requests for comment or confirmation

of the document's authenticity.

 

The conspirators behind the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah

Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded

more than 500, were inspired by radical right-wing movements. Eric

Rudolph, the man charged with carrying out the 1996 Olympic Park

bombing in Atlanta, which killed one woman and injured more than 100,

was a member of the radical anti-abortion group Army of God.

Initially, Rudolph was the object of a massive North Carolina manhunt

in connection with a Birmingham, Ala., abortion-clinic bombing that

killed a police officer and seriously maimed a nurse.

 

Another Army of God member, James Kopp, was convicted in the 1998

shooting of a doctor who performed abortions.

 

Individuals affiliated with such groups have also been involved in

many smaller terrorist acts, including mailing hundreds of bogus

anthrax letters to abortion clinics, and in plots to obtain and use

conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons against civilians. In 2003,

for instance, a Texas man prosecutors say was a white supremacist and

anti-government radical pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a

weapon of mass destruction. Authorities had discovered enough sodium

cyanide bombs to kill hundreds of people; machine guns and several

hundred thousand rounds of ammunition; 60 pipe bombs; and

remote-control explosive devices disguised as briefcases in a storage

space he rented. The man, William J. Krar, was sentenced to 11 years

in federal prison.

`Still a Threat'

 

Domestic terror experts were surprised the department did not include

right-wing groups on their list of adversaries.

 

" They are still a threat, and they will continue to be a threat, " said

Mike German, a 16-year undercover agent for the FBI who spent most of

his career infiltrating radical right-wing groups. " If for some reason

the government no longer considers them a threat, I think they will

regret that, " said German, who left the FBI last year. " Hopefully it's

an oversight. "

 

James O. Ellis III, a senior terror researcher for the National

Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), said in a

telephone interview Friday that whereas left-wing groups, which have

been more active recently, have focused mainly on the destruction of

property, right-wing groups have a much deadlier and more violent

record and should be on the list. " The nature of the history of

terrorism is that you will see acts in the name of [right-wing] causes

in the future. "

Focusing on Left-Wing Movements

 

Last year, following arson and vandalism sprees on both coasts

attributed to radical left-wing groups such as ALF and ELF, the FBI

made those movements its top domestic terror priority. But right-wing

groups remained a concern, according to one FBI official.

 

" That doesn't de-emphasize our interest in other domestic terror

groups, " stressed the official, who would not be named discussing the

bureau's counterterror strategy, during a phone interview Friday. " For

us, the right-wing patriot movement remains a continuing threat. " (The

FBI considers militias, tax protesters, and anti-government groups

part of the right-wing movement, the official said; the bureau

considers violent anti-abortion extremists a separate movement.)

 

The DHS document, entitled " Integrated Planning Guidance, Fiscal Years

2005-2011, " is dated January 2005. Its pages are marked " Sensitive —

Do Not Distribute Outside the Department of Homeland Security —

Draft. " Each paragraph in the document is marked " (U/FOUO), " which

typically indicates it has been reviewed by a government censor and

determined to be unclassified, but " for official use only. "

 

Under a section marked " Threat and Vulnerability Assessment, " the

document asks and answers the question " Who are the adversaries? "

 

First and foremost, the draft document says, are al Qaeda and its

affiliates.

 

Second are new radical Islamist groups that arise overseas amid the

rubble of the old al Qaeda organization. These organizations " could

try to supplant " al Qaeda and " would see a Homeland attack as a way to

attain that goal, " the document states.

 

Domestic radical Islamic groups concern the department, because of

their potential to support al Qaeda operations within the country, or

to serve as a " recruiting pool " for the movement.

 

" However, " the document reads, " we are not convinced that any of these

organizations acting alone would pursue a major attack against the

Homeland. "

 

As a final item, the list notes the threat of eco-terrorists, who

" will continue to focus their attacks on property damage in an effort

to change policy. " The document notes that although " publicly ALF and

ELF promote nonviolence toward human life . . . some members may

escalate their attacks. "

Priorities Questioned

 

The document lists several groups or sources of radical violence that

DHS does not consider threats to the homeland.

 

Lebanese Hizballah and various Palestinian groups, including Hamas and

Palestine Islamic Jihad, are unlikely to attack the United States, the

report's authors conclude.

 

Several high-profile terror prosecutions, including cases against the

Texas-based Holy Land Foundation and Florida professor Sami al-Arian,

rest on their connection to such groups.

 

" Why are we expending so many resources targeting people who have

allegedly provided support to groups that don't threaten us? " asked

David Cole, a professor of law at Georgetown University and a frequent

critic of the U.S. government's war on terror. " How does that make us

safer? "

 

State-sponsored terrorism also is not an immediate concern to the

department, according to the document. " In the post 9/11 environment,

countries do not appear to be facilitating or supporting terrorist

groups intent on striking the U.S. homeland, " it reads. In fact, of

all the countries designated state sponsors of terrorism, only Iran

" appears to have the possible future motivation " to use terrorist

groups to plot against the United States.

 

In the past few years, according to MIPT researcher Ellis, left-wing

violence has overtaken right-wing violence as the primary form of

domestic terror. " When a conservative government comes to power, you

see more activity from the opposite side of the spectrum, " he

explained. At the same time, the membership and activity of right-wing

groups has suffered since the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building

in Oklahoma City, and the broadcasting of images of the children who

died in the building's second-floor day care center.

 

" A lot of people said, `I'm fighting against the Zionist Occupied

Government, I'm not here to kill children, " Ellis explained.

 

Still, Ellis warned, the movements remain worthy of the government's

concern. Last October, the FBI arrested a man in Tennessee who tried

to buy sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosive to attack a government

building. The man, Demetrius " Van " Crocker, had also inquired about

obtaining nuclear waste or other nuclear material, according to the FBI.

 

And in 2003, a Pennsylvania man was convicted of mailing hundreds of

letters containing fake anthrax to abortion clinics around the United

States.

 

Although their activities appear to be decreasing, such groups are

still dangerous, said Ellis. " We don't have the luxury of ignoring

threats from either side of the political spectrum. "

 

Justin Rood can be reached at jrood.

Source: CQ Homeland Security

© 2005 Congressional Quarterly Inc.