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Deadly Attacks Since 9/11
Americans hear and read and talk a lot about terrorists – primarily foreign terrorists such as Al Qaeda or ISIS.
Certainly watching the twin towers of the World Trade Center fall and seeing the aftermath of the Boston Marathon was frightening. But in the 14 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by Al Qaeda, nearly twice as many people have been killed on U.S. soil by homegrown terrorists – white supremacists, anti-government fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists – than by radical Muslims. Here are the numbers: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.
Looking not just at deaths, but at incidents, the ratio is even more startling: Seven deadly jihadist attacks, compared to 19 deadly far right-wing, home-grown attacks.
Charleston’s Bible study attack was the latest, when a self-professed white supremacist killed people in a Wednesday night service at the historic and community-revered Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Yet it was but one of a string of attacks by Americans espousing racial hatred, hostility to government and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies the legitimacy of most statutory law.