By Jason M. Blazakis, Middlebury, The Conversation
To accomplish that, it maintains an online forum on the Telegram social media platform. (File Photo: Warren Wong/Unsplash)
In the waning days of the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of State took its first major step against terrorism groups primarily focused on what is called “accelerationism” – the effort to inspire independent followers to engage in violence in ways that broadly destabilize society. The U.S. government has long targeted actively violent terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida – the group behind the 9/11 attacks – and the Islamic State group, which carried out beheadings of innocent civilians in Iraq and Syria.
Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray repeatedly warned Congress about the threat to national security from far-right accelerationist groups. In a move to respond to those warnings, the Biden administration labeled the online-only “Terrorgram Collective” and three of its leaders as specially designated global terrorists, which means their financial assets are frozen and anyone who tries to support them can be arrested.
The Terrorgram Collective aims to destroy the current global economic and political structure and spark a war between white people and people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. To accomplish that, it maintains an online forum on the Telegram social media platform. The forum’s posts, from leaders and followers alike, are characterized by people spouting violent rhetoric and incitement to violence against minorities, Jewish people and governments.
Widespread radicalization
The State Department’s action also specifically targets two U.S. citizens: Dallas Humber of California and Matthew Allison of Idaho, who allegedly played leading roles in the Terrorgram Collective and are facing federal charges for soliciting the murder of government officials.
As my colleagues at Middlebury’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism wrote in a 2022 report, Terrorgram’s danger is primarily in its ability to spread far-right propaganda to radicalize almost anyone active on Telegram or elsewhere online.
The State Department has not attributed specific attacks to the Terrorgram Collective but rather warns of its influence and potential to inspire attacks by people who encounter the ideas it spreads. For instance, Terrorgram material was reportedly used as the basis for writings by a 17-year-old high school student who killed two fellow students and injured a third in a Jan. 22, 2025, school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.
Little targeting of fascist groups
The Terrorgram action came seven months after the Biden administration’s labeling of a Scandinavia-based far-right extremist group, the Nordic Resistance Movement, as terrorists as well.
These were two of just three times fascist extremist groups anywhere in the world were labeled terrorists by the U.S. government. Early in his first term, President Donald Trump’s State Department did label one far-right group as a specially designated global terrorist organization: the Russian Imperial Movement, based in Russia.
But as the former head of the State Department office that sanctions terrorists, I know that neither Trump nor Biden marshaled the full force of the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts against these groups.
There’s a hierarchy in the U.S. government’s labels for these organizations. That hierarchy reflects the degree of danger an organization poses as well as the strength of the U.S. response to it.
The highest-level designation and the most significant sanctions the U.S. government can impose come from placing a group on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. That list includes groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State group – also called ISIS or ISIL – which are subject to asset freezes and extended prison sentences and are barred from entering the U.S.
The second-tier list covers what are called specially designated global terrorists, which carries similar, but less severe, restrictions.
It’s easier to prove someone did something to support a group on the foreign terrorist organization list than to prove support for a group on the specially designated list. And jail time for foreign terrorist organization backers is typically longer.
All three right-wing groups are on the specially designated list, though the Trump administration could upgrade them to the top-level list, as Trump has asked the State Department to do with the Houthi militants in Yemen.
Jason M. Blazakis, Professor of Practice and Director of Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism, Middlebury
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
