ExtremismWhite Supremacists Lead New Wave of Foreign Fighters: Report

The Soufan Center released a new report titled White Supremacy Extremism: The Transnational Rise of The Violent White Supremacist Movement. The report closely examines the transnational nature and operational dynamics of a wide range of white supremacy extremist (WSE) groups across the world. The report also draws on lessons learned from disrupting and combatting Salafi-jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, the tactics of which in some cases are being utilized by WSE groups. Finally, the report offers several policy prescriptions necessary to combat the white supremacy extremism threat.

“White supremacy extremism is a growing transnational threat and one that is too large not to tackle head on,” said Ali Soufan, founder of The Soufan Center. “As the world has become more and more interconnected through social media, white supremacy extremists have found it easier and easier to recruit, fundraise, and spread violent propaganda. Moreover, white supremacist extremists are imitating Salafi-Jihadist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and many are taking advantage of international conflicts –such as the conflict in Ukraine -to expand the global white supremacy movement. Our new report outlines how these groups currently operate across the world and provides actionable solutions for policymakers, civil society, security services, and law enforcement agencies to combat this brand of violent extremism.”

The report concludes with a series of proposed policy prescriptions for the United States to make serious progress in combatting WSE groups globally. These include:

•Sanctioning transnational WSE groups as foreign terrorist organizations;

•Updating U.S. law to develop a robust domestic terrorism law statute;

•Improving data collection on hate crimes and domestic terrorism;

•Increasing human and financial resources to federal agencies to counter the WSE threat;

•Developing targeted guidance to financial and non-banking institutions to better identify WSE financial activity;

•Increasing civil society engagement on addressing WSE;

•Pressuring the tech sector to implement community use guidelines;

•Engaging more with multilateral institutions on WSE, including the United Nations.