White extremists have killed more people in domestic US attacks than radical Islamists since the World Trade Centre attacks on 11 September 2001, according to new research.
White, non-Muslim, extremists have killed 48 people in 19 isolated instances of domestic terrorism in the 14 years since 9/11, according to a report released by New America, a Washington DC research centre.By contrast, self-proclaimed Muslim jihadists killed 26 people in seven attacks in the same period. The cases noted in the report were limited to US citizens and residents indicted or convicted for terrorism crimes associated with Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, as well as those who were killed before they could be indicted but were widely reported to have been inspired by the terrorist group.It also included individuals inspired by extreme non-Jihadist political ideologies, who have been indicted for terrorism-related crimes, based on court documents, wire service reports and news reports as sources.Notably, the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in Connecticut and Batman cinema shooting in Colorado were not included. The murder of nine African-Americans in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week by a self-proclaimed white supremacist was included.In another case, Jerad and Amanda Miller, a married couple with radical anti-government views, fatally shot two police officers in a Las Vegas pizza restaurant and a third person in a nearby Wal-Mart in June 2014. Their vehement anti-government sentiment warranted this incident's inclusion in the study.The statistics come amid a debate on how the US media portrays violent attacks, with critics claiming that news outlets are too quick to refer to mental illness rather than terrorism when the perpetrator is white.
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