Extremist Groups

Authorities are investigating whether some of the seven people arrested in a shootout that killed two Louisiana deputies may have ties to extremist anti-government movements, law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times. Deputies had been conducting surveillance on several of the suspects for more than two months and considered them armed and dangerous,  DeSoto Parish Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle said in an interview with The Times. Their surveillance led them to believe that several of those under watch held anti-government beliefs and were heavily armed, Arbuckle said.

There are, in increasingly frightening numbers, cells of angry men in the United States preparing for combat with the U.S. government. They are usually heavily armed, blinded by an intractable hatred, often motivated by religious zeal. They're not jihadists. They are white, right-wing Americans, nearly all with an obsessive attachment to guns, who may represent a greater danger to the lives of American civilians than international terrorists. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been tracking hate groups for 30 years, released its latest report on the growth of these organizations this week.

A day after an anti-Semite allegedly shot and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, experts disagreed about whether it was an isolated event or the latest sign of a growing threat by domestic hate groups. The danger appeared to come from two directions: far-right fanatics who feed on domestic conspiracy theories and Muslim extremists who oppose U.S. policies abroad. Both have launched deadly attacks in recent weeks.

In his Feb. 5 Op-Ed article, " The case for drone strikes ," Michael W. Lewis presents a distorted picture of the methodology and conclusions of a report I coauthored, “ Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from U.S. Drone Practices in Pakistan .” First, Lewis suggests that our report errs in adopting the civilian casualty estimates provided by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, based in Britain. It is true that the bureau's estimates of civilian casualties have been higher than the two other institutions -- the Long War Journal and the New America Foundation -- compiling the information available on this issue.

Security forces killed four leaders of one of northern Punjab state's most radical Sikh extremist groups Monday in a two-hour gun battle in a sugar-cane field, police said. Police described the four ranking members of the Babbar Khalsa underground organization as "dreaded terrorists" involved in the murder of more than 150 people and the abductions of a number of others.

Extremist group activity on or near U.S. military bases is often so secret it can easily be overlooked unless investigators know how to spot it, the NAACP was told. That testimony during the annual meeting in Charlotte of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People cast a shadow over earlier statements by military officials that evidence of such activity on the bases is minimal to nonexistent.

In brochures, the Council of Conservative Citizens shows the face of classic conservatism, urging a bigger military and a smaller government. But its Web site warns that blacks may "burn down your cities" and Third World immigrants are "bringing their inferior cultures." The council publishes monographs too. One suggests that the United States be partitioned by race: the South to blacks, the Pacific Northwest to whites and the West Coast to Asian Americans.

The U.S. State Department credited Syria with "limited progress" in restraining terrorists from crossing the border with Iraq and in expelling some extremists. But President Bashar Assad's government has not gone far enough, particularly in closing offices of extremist groups in Damascus, department spokesman Richard Boucher said. The State Department lists Syria as a sponsor of terrorism.

In his Feb. 5 Op-Ed article, " The case for drone strikes ," Michael W. Lewis presents a distorted picture of the methodology and conclusions of a report I coauthored, “ Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from U.S. Drone Practices in Pakistan .” First, Lewis suggests that our report errs in adopting the civilian casualty estimates provided by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, based in Britain. It is true that the bureau's estimates of civilian casualties have been higher than the two other institutions -- the Long War Journal and the New America Foundation -- compiling the information available on this issue.

Serbia's public prosecutor has asked that two far-right groups be banned after their threats led to the cancellation of a gay pride parade in Belgrade, an official said. Serbian authorities withdrew approval for gay activists to hold a rally last weekend in the capital after the extremist groups Obraz and Association 1398 threatened to attack the parade. Serbia's Ministry of Human and Minority Rights asked prosecutors to seek the ban from the constitutional court after five foreigners were beaten, one severely, in central Belgrade last week.

Rebels who took over northern Mali this year clashed Friday with Islamists who had ejected them from major cities, spokesmen for both sides told reporters. A Tuareg rebel spokesman said the clashes near Ansango were part of an offensive to recapture the Gao region, Agence France-Presse reported . Oumar Ould Hamaha, spokesman for the Islamist group MUJAO, told the Associated Press the Tuareg started the fray by kidnapping a dozen of its members. “The fighting began this morning,” Hamaha said.

Authorities are investigating whether some of the seven people arrested in a shootout that killed two Louisiana deputies may have ties to extremist anti-government movements, law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times. Deputies had been conducting surveillance on several of the suspects for more than two months and considered them armed and dangerous,  DeSoto Parish Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle said in an interview with The Times. Their surveillance led them to believe that several of those under watch held anti-government beliefs and were heavily armed, Arbuckle said.

A bomb planted on a motorcycle killed five people Monday at a famed Sufi shrine in central Pakistan, the third terrorist attack at one of the country's many such shrines in four months. The latest attack occurred at the Baba Farid shrine in the town of Pakpattan in Punjab province, about 120 miles southwest of the eastern city of Lahore. A crowd had gathered about 6:20 a.m. for early prayers when the bomb exploded, said Shafiq Dogar, a Pakpattan senior administration official. "Two people parked the motorcycle near the eastern gate of the shrine, and the bomb was inside one of two milk cans on the motorcycle," Dogar said.

Two U.S. citizens were arrested at a New York airport as they tried to leave the country to join an Islamic terrorist group in Somalia and plot attacks against American troops abroad, authorities said Sunday. The men — Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, of North Bergen, N.J., and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, of Elmwood Park, N.J. — were arrested Saturday night at John F. Kennedy International Airport and charged with conspiring to kill, maim and kidnap people outside the United States, according to a complaint by the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey.

Nine members of a Michigan-based anti-government militia that posted its military exercises on the Internet and allegedly plotted to kill police officers were indicted in Detroit on Monday on conspiracy and weapons charges. The indictment said the Hutaree, which describes itself as a "Christian warrior" group, viewed all law enforcement as the enemy. It said members planned a violent act to get the attention of the police, possibly by killing an officer at a traffic stop, then attacking the funeral procession with explosives.

Nine members of an anti-government militia that posted its warrior exercises on the Internet and allegedly plotted to kill police officers were indicted in Detroit Monday on conspiracy and weapons charges. The indictment said that members of Hutaree see law enforcement as the enemy and that they planned to kill a police officer, possibly at a traffic stop, and then attack the funeral procession to kill more officers. U.S. Atty. Barbara McQuade said federal agents moved to arrest the leaders of the group over the weekend because they had discussed carrying out an attack in April.

According to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Department of Homeland Security has defamed veterans of the U.S. armed forces by concluding in an internal memo that some returning service members might be susceptible to the propaganda of right-wing extremists. The Republicans' manufactured outrage says less about the deficiencies of the document -- which are real -- than about the desperation of the Obama administration's critics.

Two young men go on trial next Monday on charges of carrying out the bloodiest extremist attack since right-wing violence erupted in Germany in the wake of reunification nearly three years ago. Self-styled neo-Nazi Michael Peters, 25, and 19-year-old Lars Christiansen face a variety of charges, including three counts of murder, in connection with the firebombing of a foreigners' home in the northern city of Moelln last November that claimed three lives and injured nine.

Serbia's public prosecutor has asked that two far-right groups be banned after their threats led to the cancellation of a gay pride parade in Belgrade, an official said. Serbian authorities withdrew approval for gay activists to hold a rally last weekend in the capital after the extremist groups Obraz and Association 1398 threatened to attack the parade. Serbia's Ministry of Human and Minority Rights asked prosecutors to seek the ban from the constitutional court after five foreigners were beaten, one severely, in central Belgrade last week.

A day after an anti-Semite allegedly shot and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, experts disagreed about whether it was an isolated event or the latest sign of a growing threat by domestic hate groups. The danger appeared to come from two directions: far-right fanatics who feed on domestic conspiracy theories and Muslim extremists who oppose U.S. policies abroad. Both have launched deadly attacks in recent weeks.