National Alliance Organization

White supremacist groups around the country are moving aggressively to recruit new members by promoting their violent, racist ideologies on billboards, in radio commercials and in leaflets tossed on suburban driveways. Watching with mounting alarm, civil rights monitors say these tactics stake out a much bolder, more public role for many hate groups, which are trying to shed their image as shadowy extremists and claim more mainstream support.

Vandalism at two San Fernando Valley synagogues and the discovery of hate literature in supermarket food products reflect the growing local strength of the National Alliance, a nationwide racist group, the Anti-Defamation League said Thursday. The local incidents are being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department, said Deputy Chief Michael Bostic, who appeared at a news conference with David A. Lehrer, the league's regional director.

On the front line in Afghanistan's draining civil war, 22 miles from the capital, Kabul, slight, silent boys armed with Kalashnikovs stare across a pockmarked village of deserted mud houses at the Taliban positions. The Afghan opposition, having suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the Taliban, is suddenly fired with hope. Their savior, they believe, will be America.

Vandalism at two San Fernando Valley synagogues and the discovery of hate literature in supermarket food products reflect the growing local strength of the National Alliance, a nationwide racist group, the Anti-Defamation League said Thursday. The local incidents are being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department, said Deputy Chief Michael Bostic, who appeared at a news conference with David A. Lehrer, the league's regional director.

The meeting point is a gas station 20 miles north of Detroit. As carloads of people from across the Midwest cruise in, a young man in a blue flannel shirt quietly signals them to follow him. They drive past a line of watchful police cars, through suburbs dotted with strip malls and fast-food restaurants. Finally, they reach working-class Shelby Township and turn left down a country road, where a Disabled American Veterans assembly hall advertises free admission to a flea market.

A thousand households in this quiet Boston suburb woke up over the weekend to find anti-Semitic and racist leaflets scattered across their front lawns. Police said the vicious propaganda was the work of the National Alliance, a West Virginia hate group. But in targeting Sharon, the organization that is believed to have helped inspire Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh may have picked the wrong town.

Less than a week after Agoura residents reported finding anti-Semitic leaflets labeled with an Internet address in their mailboxes, a West Hills synagogue was vandalized with graffiti that included the same Web address, that of a white supremacy group. The graffiti were discovered Friday morning on an exterior wall at Temple Solael on Valley Circle Boulevard, said Bob Howe, a detective supervisor at the West Valley division of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Less than a week after Agoura residents reported finding anti-Semitic leaflets labeled with an Internet address in their mailboxes, a West Hills synagogue was vandalized with graffiti that included the same Web address of a white supremacy group. The graffiti was discovered Friday morning on an exterior wall at Temple Solael on Valley Circle Boulevard, said Bob Howe, a detective supervisor with the West Valley Division of the Los Angeles Police Department.

On the front line in Afghanistan's draining civil war, 22 miles from the capital, Kabul, slight, silent boys armed with Kalashnikovs stare across a pockmarked village of deserted mud houses at the Taliban positions. The Afghan opposition, having suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the Taliban, is suddenly fired with hope. Their savior, they believe, will be America.

A thousand households in this quiet Boston suburb woke up over the weekend to find anti-Semitic and racist leaflets scattered across their front lawns. Police said the vicious propaganda was the work of the National Alliance, a West Virginia hate group. But in targeting Sharon, the organization that is believed to have helped inspire Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh may have picked the wrong town.

The meeting point is a gas station 20 miles north of Detroit. As carloads of people from across the Midwest cruise in, a young man in a blue flannel shirt quietly signals them to follow him. They drive past a line of watchful police cars, through suburbs dotted with strip malls and fast-food restaurants. Finally, they reach working-class Shelby Township and turn left down a country road, where a Disabled American Veterans assembly hall advertises free admission to a flea market.

Vandalism at two San Fernando Valley synagogues and the discovery of hate literature in supermarket food products reflect the growing local strength of the National Alliance, a nationwide racist group, the Anti-Defamation League said Thursday. The local incidents are being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department, said Deputy Chief Michael Bostic, who appeared at a news conference with David A. Lehrer, the league's regional director.

Vandalism at two San Fernando Valley synagogues and the discovery of hate literature in supermarket food products reflect the growing local strength of the National Alliance, a nationwide racist group, the Anti-Defamation League said Thursday. The local incidents are being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department, said Deputy Chief Michael Bostic, who appeared at a news conference with David A. Lehrer, the league's regional director.

Less than a week after Agoura residents reported finding anti-Semitic leaflets labeled with an Internet address in their mailboxes, a West Hills synagogue was vandalized with graffiti that included the same Web address, that of a white supremacy group. The graffiti were discovered Friday morning on an exterior wall at Temple Solael on Valley Circle Boulevard, said Bob Howe, a detective supervisor at the West Valley division of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Less than a week after Agoura residents reported finding anti-Semitic leaflets labeled with an Internet address in their mailboxes, a West Hills synagogue was vandalized with graffiti that included the same Web address of a white supremacy group. The graffiti was discovered Friday morning on an exterior wall at Temple Solael on Valley Circle Boulevard, said Bob Howe, a detective supervisor with the West Valley Division of the Los Angeles Police Department.

White supremacist groups around the country are moving aggressively to recruit new members by promoting their violent, racist ideologies on billboards, in radio commercials and in leaflets tossed on suburban driveways. Watching with mounting alarm, civil rights monitors say these tactics stake out a much bolder, more public role for many hate groups, which are trying to shed their image as shadowy extremists and claim more mainstream support.

William Pierce's life as a neo-Nazi leader stymied the imagination. Now cyberspace is flying with conjecture that his death in July from cancer will end the threat from the National Alliance, the organization he built. If only it were so. Pierce's 1978 race war novel, "The Turner Diaries," was wildly successful. But despite that success, Pierce would be forgotten for years at a time, until some new killer steeped in "Turner Diaries" mythology pushed him back into the headlines.