Terrorism Writ Large: Islam/Jihad

"I think that [Norwegian Anders] Breivik was a turning point, because he was sort of a proof of concept as to how much an individual actor could accomplish."
"He killed so many people at one time operating by himself, it really set a new bar for what one person can do."
"This is a particularly strong wave [of white supremacism] and I think it's being fueled by a lot of political developments and also by the sort of connective tissue that you get from the Internet that wasn't there before that's really making it easier for groups to be influenced and to coordinate, or not necessarily coordinate but synchronize over large geographical distances."
J.M. Berger, research fellow, Vox-Pol, European academic study of online extremism

"There's a common framing of far-right terrorism or domestic terrorism as being 'terrorism lite' and not as serious."
"It's an interesting question given that far-right attacks can be quite devastating."
Erin Miller, database manager, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland

"We conceive of this problem as being a domestic one. But that's not the case."
"They [supremacists sharing a common ideology] don't see themselves as Americans or Canadians, very much like the Christchurch killer didn't see himself as an Australian; he saw himself as part of a white collective."
"It has never been the case that these people didn't think in a global way. They may have acted in ways that looked domestic but the thinking was always about building an international white movement."
Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director, Southern Poverty Law Center, U.S.

The Christchurch killer acted alone but followed a terrifying trend

The identified and studied interconnectedness of the Internet, the ease with which people with particular agendas and fixed ideas of ideological dimensions can find one another, inspire and stir one another, share tips and declarations of hatred of noted groups, and set out to emulate one another's successful hit rates of hated groups is on the rise, it would seem. It would seem thus from the very increase in frequency of white supremacist attacks around the world. And that all too frequently those taken into custody after the commission of particularly gory blood-letting targeting the vulnerable, confess to their inspired contacts with others of their ilk.

White extremist terrorist attacks that took place in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as an example, appear to have inspired the man who stands accused of killing 50 people in a rampage in March at two Christchurch mosques in New Zealand, according to his online-posted manifesto preceding his hugely successful attack. His killing exploit serves as a particularly notable example of that informal global network of fellow extremists.

Continents are spanned as the incidents and their connectedness highlight the manner in which social media and the Internet have served to facilitate the spread of the ideology of violence through the white extremist message. A school gunman in New Mexico was seen to have corresponded with a gunman who had attacked a mall in Munich; between them eleven people were killed at their disparate geographical locations.

None, however, killed as many people as did Anders Bering Breivik with his bombing and mass shooting in 2011 in Norway, with a death toll of 77. His manifesto with its grievances listing immigration and Islam as dire provocations threatening the stability and future of his homeland has gone on to inspire others in his wake. His massive attacks were seen as a model to be emulated by aspiring hate-mongers.  A white supremacist, Frazier Glenn Miller wrote on a supremacist forum that Breivik had "inspired young Aryan men to action".

He appears to have done that and more for Miller, a prominent white supremacist in the United States who went on to attack a Jewish retirement home and community center, weapons ablaze, in Kansas, where he murdered three people. The Canadian who stormed a Quebec City mosque in 2017 and killed six worshipers had helped to inspire the Christchurch attacker who added his name to other killers whose names he wrote on his weapon. In turn Alexandre Bissonnette, the mosque shooter, had focused on American Dylann Roof who shot to death nine worshipers at a South Carolina black church in 2015.

Close to 350 white extremist terrorism attacks took place in Europe, North America and Australia from the years 2011 through to 2017, according to data from the Global Terrorism Database. The database defines terrorism as the use of violence by a non-state actor to attain a particular social goal. White extremism is a term used to describe white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic ideologies. And which accounted for roughly 8 percent of all attacks around the world, many in the United States.

In the Oceania region, five white extremist attacks took place from 2011 to 2017 in Australia, all attacks on mosques and Islamic centers. The New Zealand attack was carried out by an Australian who claims to have been radicalized while travelling through Europe. The targets take place in Perth, Dresden, Germany, or Pittsburgh on mosques and synagogues, or asylum centers. Those who study white extremists lament the attention focused on Islamic extremism, pointing out it is not the only driver of international terrorism.


However, it's a safe bet that Islamic jihadist attacks, their frequency, ferocity, deadliness and ongoing threats against the West have inspired white nationalists to play back the Islamist game plan. And while any attacks on innocent people -- destroying lives and causing chaos in society -- are grim and soul-destroying, there is little comparison in total effect between those mounted by white extremists as opposed to the dreadful toll taken by the fearsome attacks launched by various Islamist jihadi groups for whom death deliverance is a sacred duty to Islam and to which no one is immune.