Domestic terrorists, and in particular militia groups and white nationalists, pose an elevated terror threat, the intelligence community said Wednesday in a new report ordered in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“Narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the US Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some [domestic violent extremists] to try to engage in violence this year,” according to the report.
The report, crafted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice, comes after President Biden ordered a sweeping review of domestic terror threats just days after taking office.
The report stresses that lone wolf actors and small groups of extremists are the most likely to carry out attacks, warning that they “often radicalize independently by consuming violent extremist material online and mobilize without direction from a violent extremist organization, making detection and disruption difficult.”
The report comes as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday issued a similar warning to lawmakers of the risks posed by small groups of extremists.
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