Anti-government Terrorist Attacks In The United States

In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States.

During the American Civil War, pro-Confederate Bushwhackers and pro- Union Jayhawkers in Missouri and Kansas respectively engaged in cross border raids, committed acts of violence against civilians and soldiers, stole goods and burned down farms. The most infamous event occurred in Lawrence, Kansas on August 21, 1863, when Quantrill's Raiders led by William Quantrill ransacked the town and murdered about 190 civilians because of the town's anti-slavery sentiment. Other acts of terrorism occurred during the war included the 1863 ''Chesapeake'' Affair and the 1864 St. Albans Raid, the former being committed by British subjects.

Since the end of the Civil War, organized groups or lone wolf white supremacists have committed many acts of domestic terrorism against African-Americans. This form of terrorism has consisted of lynchings, hate crimes, shootings, bombings and other acts of violence. Such acts of violence overwhelmingly occurred in the Southern United States, and they included acts of violence which were committed by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). White supremacist terrorist incidents include the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, the Rosewood massacre of 1923, and the Wilmington insurrection of 1898.

In 2019, Matthew Alcoke, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division, defined domestic terrorists as "individuals who commit violent criminal acts in furtherance of ideological goals stemming from domestic issues." Although acts of violence by domestic extremists meet the definition, no US criminal charge for domestic terror exists. Rather, the phrase is an FBI investigative category used to classify four types of extremism: "racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority extremism, animal rights/ environmental extremism, and abortion extremism." A 2017 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that out of the 85 deadly extremist incidents which had occurred since September 11, 2001, white supremacist extremist groups were responsible for 73%, while radical Islamist extremists were responsible for 27%. The total number of deaths caused by each group was about the same. However, 41% of the deaths were attributable to radical Islamists and they all occurred in a single event — the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting in which 49 people were killed by a lone gunman. No deaths were attributed to left-wing groups. A 2017 report by Type Media Center and The Center for Investigative Reporting analyzed a list of the terrorist incidents which occurred in the US between 2008 and 2016 and included the 2014 killings of NYPD officers and the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers (a total of seven deaths saying that they could "plausibly be attributed to a perpetrator with such sympathies").

In 2018, most ideologically motivated murders in the United States of America were linked to right-wing extremism. As of 2020, right-wing extremist terrorism accounted for the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the US and has killed more people in the continental United States since the September 11 attacks than Islamic terrorism. The United States Department of Homeland Security reported in October 2020 that white supremacists posed the top domestic terrorism threat, which FBI director Christopher Wray confirmed in March 2021, noting that the bureau had elevated the threat to the same level as ISIS.

Totals in the U.S.

A 2017 report by The Nation Institute and the Center for Investigative Reporting analyzed a list of the terrorist incidents which occurred in the US between 2008 and 2016. It found:
* 115 far-right inspired terrorist incidents. 35% of these incidents were foiled (this number means that no terrorist attacks occurred) and 29% of them resulted in fatalities. These incidents caused 79 deaths.
* 63 Islamist inspired terrorist incidents. 76% of these terrorist incidents were foiled (this number means that no terrorist attacks occurred) and 13% of them resulted in fatalities. These incidents caused 90 deaths.
* 19 far-left inspired terrorist incidents. 20% of these terrorist incidents were foiled (this number means that no terrorist attacks occurred) and 10% of them resulted in fatalities. Two of these incidents were described as "plausibly" attributed to a perpetrator with left-wing sympathies and caused 7 deaths. These are not included in the official government database.

According to a report which is based on Justice Department figures which were released by the U.S. government in January 2018, about three out of four people who were convicted on charges of international terrorism between September 11, 2001, to December 31, 2016, were foreign-born. According to the Justice Department, 549 people were convicted on charges of international terrorism, including 254 people who were citizens of other countries, 148 people were naturalized citizens and 148 people were natural-born-citizens. In a speech which he made before a joint session of Congress on February 28, 2017, President Donald Trump incorrectly attributed these findings to domestic terrorism, in actuality, these findings were based on cases in which international terrorists may have been brought to the United States for prosecution.

In 2015, the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and the Police Executive Research Forum conducted a nationwide survey of 382 police and sheriff departments. Nearly 74% of respondents stated that anti-government violence was their top concern with regard to threats from violent extremists, while about 39% of respondents stated that "Al Qaeda-inspired" violence was their top concern.

For the past decade, the national conversation on terrorism has largely focused on Islamic extremist acts, however, law enforcement groups have made it clear that Muslim extremists perpetrate a minute percentage of the ideologically based terrorist attacks which are perpetrated in the United States. Since November 9, 2001, only about 9 American Muslims per year have taken part in terrorist plots in the United States, in total, 20 incidents resulted in about 50 deaths. A 2012 study showed that in about the same time period right-wing extremists were responsible for about 337 attacks per year, in total, they killed more than 5 times the number of people killed by Muslims in the United States.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism maintains ''Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States'', a database which contains over 1,800 profiles of individuals who have been radicalized by ideologies since 1948. The database shows that from 1948 through 2016, 40.0% of identified extremists were far-right, 24.5% of identified extremists were Islamist and 17.4% of identified extremists were far-left, while 18.2% of identified extremists were "single issue" individuals.

In May 2019 and for the first time in its history, the FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories as a potential source of domestic terrorism, it specifically cited QAnon.

A June 2020 study of domestic terrorist incidents by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reported that during the previous 25 years, the majority of attacks and plots were perpetrated and hatched by far-right attackers. This trend has accelerated in recent years, with this sector being responsible for about 66% of all of the attacks and plots which were perpetrated in 2019, and it was also responsible for 90% of all of those attacks which were perpetrated in 2020. The next most potentially dangerous group has been "religious extremists", the majority "Salafi jihadists inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda", while the number planned by the far left has reduced to a minute fraction since the mid-2000s.

In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security released the ''Homeland Threat Assessment'', a report detailing various domestic threats to US national security. It states that, out of all domestic terror attacks resulting in lethal threats to life between 2018 and 2019, "WSEs hite supremacist extremistsconducted half of all lethal attacks (8 of 16), resulting in the majority of deaths (39 of 48)".

Attacks by type

Anti-abortion violence

Since 1997, there have been 8 murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings, and 186 arson attacks aimed at abortion clinics and multiple providers across the US. In some cases small groups of clinics have been attacked multiple times.
* 1991: The Central Ohio Women's Clinic that was housed in a building owned by the Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio in Columbus, Ohio was burned by members of the Christian Liberation Army, with damages estimates $75,000 in damages. Nine days later threw a firebomb into the Capital Care Women's Center in Columbus, Ohio, leaving damages sustained $250,000 in damages.
* 1993: David Gunn was murdered by anti-abortion activist Michael F. Griffin
* 1994: Abortion provider John Britton and James Barrett (both killed) and his wife June (shot but not killed) became victims of Reverend Paul Jennings Hill.
* 1996–1998: anti-abortion extremist Eric Rudolph cited biblical passages as his motivation for a series of bombings, including Atlanta's Olympic Centennial Park, a lesbian bar, and several abortion clinics. Rudolph acknowledges his attacks were religiously motivated, but denies that his brief association with the racist Christian Identity movement was a motivation for his attacks.
* 1996: Dr. Calvin Jackson of New Orleans, Louisiana was stabbed 15 times, losing 4 pints of blood. Donald Cooper was charged with second degree attempted murder and was sentenced to 20 years. "Donald Cooper's Day of Violence", by Kara Lowentheil, Choice! Magazine, December 21, 2004
* 1998: James Kopp killed at least one and went on a series of anti-abortion shooting sprees, both in the U.S. and Canada.
* 2006: David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan, crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions; however, Edgerton is not an abortion clinic. Time magazine listed the incident in a "Top 10 Inept Terrorist Plots" list.
* 2009: Anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder killed George Tiller in Kansas .
* 2015: Robert Lewis Dear killed three people in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At his court hearings Dear declared himself a "warrior for the babies".

Antisemitism

* October 12, 1958: Bombing of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple of Atlanta, Georgia. The acts were carried out by white supremacists.
* June 18, 1984: Alan Berg, a Jewish lawyer-talk show host was shot and killed in the driveway of his home on Capitol Hill, Denver, Colorado, by members of a neo-Nazi group called The Order. Earlier and on the show, Berg had stridently argued with a member of the group who was later convicted of his murder.
* 1977 Washington, D.C. attack and hostage taking of Jewish hostages at the B'nai B'rith by members of a black Muslim group that had split away from the Nation of Islam.
* August 10, 1999: Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting in Granada Hills, California of Los Angeles. 5 people were wounded in the Jewish community center and its daycare facility. The gunman, Buford O. Furrow had antisemitic and anti-government views. Shortly thereafter, Furrow murdered a mail carrier, fled the state, and finally surrendered to authorities.
* June 10, 2009: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting: 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi, walked into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., shooting and mortally wounding Stephen Tyrone Johns, a security guard. Von Brunn was wounded when other museum guards immediately returned fire and on January 6, 2010, while he was awaiting trial, von Brunn died of natural causes in a hospital which was located near the prison where he was being held. During the investigation it was discovered that von Brunn had planned to target White House senior adviser David Axelrod leading to increased protection for Axelrod and other steps.
* April 13, 2014: Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting: 3 killed and 1 critically injured in shootings at Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom in Overland Park, Kansas. Suspect is 74-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. On April 27, 2015, Miller told the Associated Press that he planned to plead guilty and he also stated that his motivation was to "put the Jews on trial where they belong".
* January 10, 2018: Murder of Blaze Bernstein: A 19 year old gay Jewish student from the University of Pennsylvania was killed by a former classmate and member of the neo-Nazi terrorist organization Atomwaffen Division in Orange County, California.
* October 27, 2018: Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: A mass shooting occurred at Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2018, while a service was being held. Eleven people were killed, and six were injured. The sole suspect, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers, was arrested and charged with 29 federal crimes and 36 state crimes.
* April 27, 2019: Poway synagogue shooting: A 19 year old nursing student, inspired by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Christchurch mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, announced his plans to shoot up the synagogue on 8chan by posting an open letter. One woman was killed, and three were injured.
* December 10, 2019: Jersey City Kosher Grocery Shooting: Three people were shot and killed in a kosher grocery store in Jersey City by two heavily armed assailants, David N. Anderson and Francine Graham. The assailants wounded another customer and two police officers before being killed by police. It was determined in the subsequent investigation that the Anderson and Francine had planned a much larger attack on the Jewish community.
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Environmental terrorism

* University of Washington firebombing incident
* 1989 California medfly attack

Islamic extremism

* September 11, 2001:
** (New York City): Hijackers take control of two commercial jets containing passengers and fuel, flying them into the World Trade Center, killing hundreds on impact and an additional 2,606 when the towers subsequently collapsed. More than 6,000 people were injured.
** (Arlington County, Virginia): 5 Hijackers fly a Boeing 757-223 containing 53 passengers and 6 crew into the Pentagon, killing all 64 aboard and an additional 125 people on the ground.
** (Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania): 33 passengers and 7 crew are killed after attempting to regain control from four hijackers that planned to fly the Boeing 757 into either the U.S. Capitol building or the White House. All 44 occupants died on impact after hijackers forced the plane into a nose dive.
* June 1, 2009: Little Rock recruiting office shooting, (Little Rock, AR): A man shoots a local soldier to death inside a recruiting center explicitly in the name of Allah.
* November 5, 2009: Fort Hood shooting, Ft. Hood, Texas: A Muslim psychiatrist guns down thirteen unarmed soldiers while yelling praises to Allah.
* April 15, 2013: Boston Marathon bombing (Boston, MA): Foreign-born Muslims detonate two bombs packed with ball bearings at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and causing several more to lose limbs.
* September 25, 2014: Vaughan Foods beheading incident, (Moore, OK): A Sharia advocate beheads a woman after calling for Islamic terror and posting an Islamist beheading photo.
* July 16, 2015: Chattanooga shootings, Chattanooga, Tennessee: A Muslim commits a shooting spree at a recruiting center at a strip mall and a naval center, leaving five soldiers dead at the latter location.
* November 4, 2015: University of California, Merced stabbing attack by Islamist extremist
* December 2, 2015: San Bernardino attack, San Bernardino, California: A couple opens fire at a Christmas party, leaving fourteen dead.
* January 7, 2016: Shooting of Jesse Hartnett, Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett is ambushed by a gunman who later pledged allegiance to ISIS.
* February 11, 2016: Ohio restaurant machete attack by Islamist extremist
* June 12, 2016: Orlando nightclub shooting, Orlando, Florida: Omar Mateen shoots and kills 49 people and injures 58 more at a gay bar, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time.
* November 28, 2016: Ohio State University attack, Columbus, Ohio: A Somali student, Abdul Artan, who came to the U.S. as a refugee, intentionally rammed a car into pedestrians on a busy campus sidewalk on Monday morning and then began slashing passers-by with a butcher knife, the authorities said, injuring 11 students and faculty and staff members.
* October 31, 2017: New York City truck attack, New York City: 29-year-old Sayfullo Habibullaevich Saipov rented a Home Depot pickup truck and intentionally drove it through a bicycle path. He crashed into a school bus and then exited the vehicle wielding look-a-like weapons. He was shot by NYPD. 8 people were killed and 12 were injured.
* December 6, 2019: Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting, Pensacola, Florida: A second lieutenant of the Saudi Royal Air Force training at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola opened fire in one of the classroom buildings killing 3 and wounding 8 others before being shot dead by responding police officers.
* May 21, 2020: Corpus Christi, Texas: At the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Adam Alsahi crashed through a northern perimeter gate at NAS Corpus Christi, activating vehicle barriers. The driver then got out and opened fire before being shot and killed. A Navy police officer was shot but was protected by a ballistic vest. Alsahi had expressed support for terrorist networks including ISIS. The FBI announced the incident as terrorism-related.
* January 1, 2025: New Orleans truck attack, New Orleans, Louisiana: Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a truck into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street and Canal Street, killing 14 people and injuring another 57. He then got out of the truck and shot at the police before being shot and killed. The police found more guns, a bomb, and an ISIS flag in the truck.

Left-wing and anti-government extremism

* September 6, 1901: President William McKinley was assassinated by Michigan born Russian-Polish anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, in Buffalo, New York.
* November 24, 1917: A bomb explodes in a Milwaukee police station, killing nine officers and a civilian. Anarchists were suspected.Balousek, Marv, and Kirsch, J. Allen, ''50 Wisconsin Crimes of the Century'', Badger Books Inc. (1997), , , p. 113
* April through June 1919: A series of bombings and attempted bombings by Galleanist anarchists from . Targets included anti-immigration politicians, anti-anarchist officials, prominent businessmen, a journalist and a church.
* September 16, 1920: Wall Street bombing: The explosion killed 30 people, and another 10 later died of wounds from the blast. 143 were seriously injured.
* 1969–1977: The Weather Underground, a radical socialist movement, committed dozens of bombings and other terrorist activities over this time period. List of Weatherman actions
* August 7, 1969: Twenty were injured by radical leftist Sam Melville in a bombing of the Marine Midland Building in New York City.
* September 18, 1969: The Federal Building in New York City was bombed by radical leftist Jane Alpert.
* October 7, 1969: Fifth floor of the Armed Forces Induction Center in New York City was devastated by explosion attributed to radical leftist Jane Alpert.
* November 12, 1969: A bomb was detonated in the Manhattan Criminal Court building in New York City. Jane Alpert, Sam Melville, and 3 other militant radical leftists were arrested hours later.
* 1971–1975: The New World Liberation Front was a radical left-wing group in the San Francisco area in the 1970s that conducted multiple bombings in the Bay area over a 3-year period. They claim nearly 50 successful bombings.
* March 1, 1971: The radical leftist group Weather Underground exploded a bomb in the United States Capitol to protest the U.S. invasion of Laos.'' The Weather Underground'', produced by Carrie Lozano, directed by Bill Siegel and Sam Green, New Video Group, 2003, DVD.
* January 2–4, 1973: A bomb exploded at a United States Navy recruiting center in Portland, Oregon and two days later an Army recruiting center in the same city was dynamited by a group of anti-war activists in a conspiracy which included academic and bookseller Frank Stearns Giese.
* June 13, 1974: The 29th floor of the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was bombed with dynamite at 9:41 pm resulting in no injuries. The radical leftist group Weather Underground took credit, but no suspects have ever been identified.
* May 31, 1975 – 1978: George Jackson Brigade bombings
* January 26, 1980: The home and car of Nguyen Thanh Hoang, a Vietnamese anti-communist journalist, were firebombed in Arlington County, Virginia. No one was injured. Hoang had received letters urging him to stop his anti-communist propaganda. After the event, two letters which claimed responsibility for the bombings were signed by a group calling itself the 'Action Squad'.
* November 7, 1983: U.S. Senate bombing. The Armed Resistance Unit, a militant leftist group, bombed the United States Capitol in response to the U.S. invasion of Grenada.
* May and June 1984: Earl Steven Karr planted over 20 pipe-bombs all around Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin. He was arrested in Mason City, Iowa after a pipe-bomb he was transporting detonated in the trunk of his car. Karr suffered second degree burns in the explosion. Only one person is known to have been injured by his explosives. Karr, a man with mental problems who stated he was a "former homosexual", left notes near the bombs which named the "North Central Gay Strike Force Against Public and Police Oppression" as the responsible party. A motive could not be determined other than a dislike of the towns the bombs were placed in.
* 19 May 2012: Three men were arrested after a raid an apartment, seized pipe bomb instructions, an improvised mortar made of PVC piping, a crossbow, knives, shurikens, a map of Chicago and four fire bombs, authorities confirmed. On April 25, 2014, the three men were sentenced to eight to five years in prison, considerably reducing initial penalties of up to thirty years.
* June 14, 2017: Congressional baseball shooting. James T. Hodgkinson was distraught over the 2016 election of President Donald J. Trump, and opened fire on an Alexandria, Virginia, baseball field where the Republican congressional team was practicing for the following day's Congressional Baseball Game. Majority whip Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana was one of four who were wounded. Hodgkinson was fatally shot by police who arrived at the scene within a few minutes of the shooting.

Palestinian and anti-Israel militancy

* June 5, 1968: Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship, assassinated Democratic presidential nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, because of Kennedy's strong support of Israel. Some scholars believe the assassination was one of the first major incidents of political violence in the United States stemming from the Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East.
* March 4, 1973: A failed terrorist attack by Palestinian group Black September, with car bombings in New York City while Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was visiting the city
* June 1, 1973: Yosef Alon, the Israeli Air Force attache in Washington, D.C., was shot and killed outside his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Palestinian militant group Black September is suspected, though the case remains unsolved.
* July 1, 1973: In Montgomery County, Maryland, an Israeli diplomat is gunned down in his driveway by Palestinian activist.
* February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing, (New York City): Ramzi Yousef detonates a massive truck bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring over 1,000 in an effort to collapse the towers.
* 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting: a van filled with Jewish schoolboys to avenge of Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.
* February 23, 1997: A Palestinian teacher, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal traveled to the top of the Empire State building where he shot seven people before killing himself.
* January 5, 2002: Charlie J. Bishop stole a Cessna 172