A new report shows that Facebook for years allowed militia groups to recruit new members via paid advertisements on the platform. The review — which followed news of the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, which played out on Facebook and other social media — also found more than 50 militia pages and groups that are still active on Facebook.

The French minister of the interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced the closure of the Pantin mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis. Darmanin said the closure was a response to the beheading Friday of Samuel Paty, a history and geography professor, near the college of Conflans-saint-Honorine where he was a teacher. Paty, teaching a course on the freedom of expression, showed caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class. A Muslin student complained to his parents, and the parents persuaded a preacher to issue a “fatwa” calling for the killing of Paty.

Two of the six men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan’s governor Gretchen Whitmer participated in a discussions earlier this year with other members of far-right militia groups about abducting Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, an FBI agent testified Tuesday.

Last week’s announcement by federal authorities that six men had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) (seven other individuals were arrested on related state charges) is a chilling example of the evolving domestic terrorist threat facing America. Kevin K. McAleenan, the former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Thomas K. Plofchan III, the former counterterrorism adviser to the secretary, write that the arrests in Michigan represent “one of the most significant incidents highlighting law enforcement concerns that domestic extremists.” They add that “the predominant terrorist threat at home today is increasingly domestic in nature,” and that “Within the domestic terrorist threat landscape, racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, and specifically white-supremacist extremists, represent the ‘most persistent and lethal threat,’ according to the recent DHS threat assessment.”

Details are still emerging about the men arrested on federal and state charges related to an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Federal prosecutions can take months and even years, so it will be quite some time before a full analysis of this situation becomes possible. But as a scholar who has spent the last 12 years studying the U.S. domestic militia movement, including three years of fieldwork embedded with militias in Michigan, I believe several themes will remain important, wherever the details lead.

Researchers from Macquarie and Victoria Universities have published the first study mapping the online activity of right-wing extremists in New South Wales, Australia. Their study has revealed a network of highly active, social, and complex communities that is difficult to monitor for potential offline violence and is highly successful in radicalizing at-risk individuals and introducing hateful and extreme rhetoric into Australian political discussions. The report highlighted the strong influence of American populist politics on right-wing extremism in Australia.

More and more, far-right extremist violence is preceded by online declarations on social media. Craig Timberg and Isaac Stanley-Becker write that “such online declarations, brimming with anger and potentially violent intent, have become staples of extremism-fueled crime news in recent years,” and that “Before [such crimes] become real, [discussions of them] percolate online, courtesy of a social media ecosystem that is ubiquitous, barely moderated and well suited to helping aggrieved people find each other.” The plot by extremist Michigan militias to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer was no exception.

The country is deeply divided. The political system is polarized. Bizarre conspiracy theories have entered mainstream political discourse. There seem to be messaging efforts designed to delegitimize next month’s elections. The president refuses to say that he will abide by the results. One official talked on social media about buying ammunition and preparing for violence. Some pundits are warning of civil war. The nation’s anxiety is palpable and understandable. Older Americans have a slight advantage in avoiding alarm. They personally recall the turbulent late ’60s and early ’70s with the country at war abroad and at war with itself at home. American institutions held then, but can they do so again now? What are the prospects for domestic terrorism in the context of U.S. elections?

The intrusions of white supremacist militias into cities to intimidate, and at times attack, protestors from the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement highlights the possibility of rural insurgency, Vasabjit Banerjee writes. Does the United States face a rural insurgency? Mao Zedong allegedly remarked that rebels should inhabit their environment as fish in the sea, which was the case in mid-20th Century China with its rural hinterland where the vast majority of the population resided.Banerjee notes that the political geography of the United States — withless than 2 percent of the American population living in 100 percent rural countries – means that the “sea” for rural rebels is small. But the grievances, resources, and opportunities which typically undergird rural insurgencies are present. “Consequently, militia groups deserve more scrutiny from security forces and a unified political consensus to deter and suppress them in order to maintain peace and stability.”