126-454: The Jewish Internet Defense Force ( JIDF ) was an organization ran social media campaigns from 2000 to 2014 against websites and Facebook groups that it described as Islamic terrorism or antisemitism . The group's website, whose former domain now links to a gambling site, described the JIDF as a "private, independent, non-violent protest organization representing a collective of activists". The JIDF
252-537: A natural gas processing plant. In 1999, the city council of Charleston, South Carolina , passed a resolution declaring the Klan a terrorist organization. The existence of modern Klan groups has been in a state of consistent decline, due to a variety of factors: from the American public's negative distaste of the group's image, platform, and history, infiltration and prosecution by law enforcement, civil lawsuit forfeitures, and
378-546: A 1933 interview, William Sellers, born enslaved in Virginia, recalled the post-war "raids of the Ku Klux, young white men of Rockingham County who would go into the huts of the recently freed negroes or catch some negro who had been working for thirty cents a day on his way home from work...and cruelly whip him, leaving him to live or die." Seemingly random whipping attacks, meant to be suggestive of previous condition of servitude, were
504-491: A Nation , which mythologized the founding of the first Klan, it employed marketing techniques and a popular fraternal organization structure . Rooted in local Protestant communities, it sought to maintain white supremacy , often took a pro- Prohibition stance, and it opposed Jews , while also stressing its opposition to the alleged political power of the pope and the Catholic Church . This second Klan flourished both in
630-532: A chance to participate in the process. Hundreds of Klan members were fined or imprisoned during the crackdown, "once the national government became set upon a policy of military intervention whole populations which had scouted the authority of the weak 'Radical' government of the State became meek." Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest boasted that the Klan was a nationwide organization of 550,000 men and that he could muster 40,000 Klansmen within five days' notice. However,
756-690: A congressional committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities, accumulating 12 volumes. In February, former Union general and congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (Ku Klux Klan Act). This added to the enmity that Southern white Democrats bore toward him. While the bill was being considered, further violence in the South swung support for its passage. The governor of South Carolina appealed for federal troops to assist his efforts in keeping control of
882-668: A detailed recounting of Klansmen's beatings and murders of freedmen and their white allies. Milder encounters, including some against white teachers, also occurred. In Mississippi , according to the Congressional inquiry: One of these teachers (Miss Allen of Illinois), whose school was at Cotton Gin Port in Monroe County , was visited ... between one and two o'clock in the morning in March 1871, by about fifty men mounted and disguised. Each man wore
1008-565: A few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic , was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen. Historian Eric Foner observed: "In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class , and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in
1134-492: A few weeks prior to the Presidential election of November 1868. Although St. Landry Parish had a registered Republican majority of 1,071, after the murders, no Republicans voted in the fall elections. White Democrats cast the full vote of the parish for President Grant's opponent. The KKK killed and wounded more than 200 Black Republicans, hunting and chasing them through the woods. Thirteen captives were taken from jail and shot;
1260-440: A formal and decisive disbandment". A Georgia-based reporter wrote in 1870: "A true statement of the case is not that the Ku Klux are an organized band of licensed criminals, but that men who commit crimes call themselves Ku Klux". In many states, officials were reluctant to use Black militia against the Klan out of fear that racial tensions would be raised. Republican governor of North Carolina William Woods Holden called out
1386-639: A growth of religiously motivated Islamic movements in the Middle East, supported by Saudi Arabia , which came into conflict with the predominant secular ( Nasserist and Ba'athist ) nationalist ideologies at the time. The book The Revolt by Menachem Begin , leader of the Irgun militia and future Israeli Prime Minister, influenced both Carlos Marighella 's urban guerrilla theory and Osama bin Laden 's Islamist al-Qaeda organization. Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman in
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#17330855791071512-823: A half-buried pile of 25 bodies was found in the woods. The KKK made people vote Democratic and gave them certificates of the fact. In the April 1868 Georgia gubernatorial election, Columbia County cast 1,222 votes for Republican Rufus Bullock . By the November presidential election , Klan intimidation led to suppression of the Republican vote and only one person voted for Ulysses S. Grant . Klansmen killed more than 150 African Americans in Jackson County, Florida , and hundreds more in other counties including Madison, Alachua, Columbia, and Hamilton. Florida Freedmen's Bureau records provided
1638-503: A large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation. However, while
1764-402: A long white robe and his face was covered by a loose mask with scarlet stripes. She was ordered to get up and dress which she did at once and then admitted to her room the captain and lieutenant who in addition to the usual disguise had long horns on their heads and a sort of device in front. The lieutenant had a pistol in his hand and he and the captain sat down while eight or ten men stood inside
1890-458: A modern business system of using full-time, paid recruiters and it appealed to new members as a fraternal organization, of which many examples were flourishing at the time. The national headquarters made its profit through a monopoly on costume sales, while the organizers were paid through initiation fees. It grew rapidly nationwide at a time of prosperity. Reflecting the social tensions pitting urban versus rural America, it spread to every state and
2016-528: A struggle against "U.S./Western/Jewish aggression, oppression, and exploitation of Muslim lands and peoples". Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon , in their book, The Age of Sacred Terror , argue that Islamic terrorist attacks are motivated by religious fervor. They are seen as "a sacrament ... intended to restore to the universe a moral order that had been corrupted by the enemies of Islam." Their attacks are neither political nor strategic but an "act of redemption" meant to "humiliate and slaughter those who defied
2142-475: A success in terms of "restoring order, reinvigorating the morale of Southern Republicans, and enabling Blacks to exercise their rights as citizens". Historian George C. Rable argues that the Klan was a political failure and therefore was discarded by the Democratic Party leaders of the South. He says: The Klan declined in strength in part because of internal weaknesses; its lack of central organization and
2268-437: A way as to incur and benefit from Saudi largesse," and so propagate Wahhabi doctrines; The hundreds of Islamic colleges and Islamic centers, over a thousand mosques and schools for Muslim children, it financed often featured Wahhabi-friendly curriculum and religious materials such as textbooks explaining that all forms of Islam except Wahhabism were deviation, or the twelfth grade Saudi text that "instructs students that it
2394-561: A widespread aspect of the early Klan; for example in 1870–71 in Limestone Township (now Cherokee County ), South Carolina, of 77 documented attacks, "four were shot, sixty-seven whipped and six had had their ears cropped ." Klan members adopted masks and robes that hid their identities and added to the drama of their night rides, their chosen time for attacks. Many of them operated in small towns and rural areas where people otherwise knew each other's faces, and sometimes still recognized
2520-525: Is a misnomer for what should be called " Islamist terrorism". George W. Bush and Tony Blair (US president and UK Prime Minister respectively at the time of the September 11 attacks ) repeatedly stated that the war against terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. Others inside and out of the Islamic world who oppose its use on the grounds there is no connection between Islam and terrorism include Imran Khan ,
2646-613: Is a recent phenomenon is disputed. Some maintain that there was no terrorism in Islam prior to late 20th and early 21st century, while others, such as Ibn Warraq , claim that from the beginning of Islam, "violent movements have arisen" such as the Kharijites , Sahl ibn Salama, Barbahari , Kadizadeli movement, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab , etc., "seeking to revive true Islam, which its members felt had been neglected in Muslim societies, who were not living up to
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#17330855791072772-645: Is a religious obligation to do 'battle' against infidels in order to spread the faith". Wahhabi-friendly works distributed for free "financed by petroleum royalties" included those of Ibn Taymiyyah (author of the fatwa mentioned above against rulers who do not rule by sharia law). Not least, the successful 1980–1990 jihad against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan—that inspired non-Afghan jihad veterans to continue jihad in their own country or other—benefited from billions of dollars in Saudi financing, as well as "weaponry and intelligence". The "root cause" of Muslim terrorism
2898-492: Is extremist ideology, according to Pakistani theologian Javed Ahmad Ghamidi , specifically the teachings that: Other authors have noted other elements of extremist Islamic ideology. Terror attacks requiring the death of the attacker are generally referred to as suicide attacks/bombings by the media, but when done by Islamists their perpetrators generally call such an attack Istishhad (or in English " martyrdom operation "), and
3024-607: Is his true surname". In the same article, Appletree accused Facebook administrators of antisemitism for closing down his account. A Facebook spokesperson replied that the account was terminated because the website did not believe he was using his real name, a breach of Facebook's "real name culture". Appletree said that he maintained about 40 Facebook groups focused on combating terrorism and antisemitism. The group focused its attention on websites like Facebook , YouTube , Google Earth , and Misplaced Pages . The JIDF redirected anti-Israel Facebook groups to other pages it preferred and changed
3150-456: Is hypocritical in removing groups that support the Ku Klux Klan , for instance, while not removing what it considers Holocaust denial groups and claimed it would continue to criticize Facebook over the matter. JIDF's measures "include reporting Misplaced Pages editors it claims are anti-Israel, and taking action against entries seen as including one-sided or false accounts of the history of Israel and
3276-558: Is known as Wahabism . Sponsored by oil exporting power Saudi Arabia , Wahabism is deeply conservative and anti-revolutionary (its founder taught that Muslims are obliged to give unquestioned allegiance to their ruler, however imperfect, so long as he leads the community according to the laws of God), Nonetheless, this ideology and its sponsors have been accused of assisting terrorism both Up until at least 2017 or so (when Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman declared Saudi Arabia
3402-626: Is known for paying the families of imprisoned terrorists and of suicide bombers . The Islamic Republic of Iran intends billions of US dollars annually for militia fighters and terrorists, exploiting the extreme economic difficulties faced by people in countries such as Yemen , Lebanon and Syria by offering them cash in exchange for terror activity. A 2015 "general portrait" of "the conditions and circumstances" under which people living in France become "Islamic radicals" (terrorists or would-be terrorists) by Olivier Roy (see above) found radicalisation
3528-423: Is not a country! Delist it from Facebook as a country". Matt Hicks of Facebook responded by saying: "As long as the groups meet our terms of use, they can stay up. But we encourage users to report anything that is racist or objectionable." The JIDF claimed the "Israel is not a Country" group was antisemitic and mobilized supporters to complain to Facebook in an effort to have it deleted. After Facebook refused to shut
3654-488: Is not linked to Islam. According to journalist Graeme Wood "much of what" one major Islamic terror group -- ISIS -- "does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment" of Muhammad and his companions, "and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse" and Judgement day . ISIS group members insist "they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by
3780-772: Is strongly associated with an increase in religious practice". (This is not the case in European "countries where Muslims are predominant"— Bosnia , Albania , etc. -- where the opposite seems to be true, i.e. the more importance respondents assigned to religion in their life, the less likely they were to "justifying political violence".) Most strains of thought/schools/sects/movements/ denominations /traditions of Islam do not support or otherwise associate themselves with terrorism. According to Mir Faizal, only three sects or movements of Islam—the Sunni sects of Salafi , Deobandi , and Barelvi . —have been associated with violence against civilians. Of
3906-667: Is to make sure that we do not lump these murderers into the billion Muslims that exist around the world ..." It has been argued that "Islamic terrorism" is a misnomer for what should be called " Islamist terrorism". In January 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties issued a report titled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims", which opened with Words matter. The terminology that senior government officials use must accurately identify
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4032-859: The Civil War , during the Reconstruction of the South. The group was known for a short time as the "Kuklux Clan". The Ku Klux Klan was one of a number of secret, oath-bound organizations using violence, which included the Southern Cross in New Orleans (1865) and the Knights of the White Camelia (1867) in Louisiana . Historians generally classify the KKK as part of the post-Civil War insurgent violence related not only to
4158-502: The Confederate army : Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones, and James Crowe. It started as a fraternal social club inspired at least in part by the then largely defunct Sons of Malta . It borrowed parts of the initiation ceremony from that group, with the same purpose: "ludicrous initiations, the baffling of public curiosity, and the amusement for members were
4284-595: The Prescript , which espoused white supremacist belief. For instance, an applicant should be asked if he was in favor of "a white man's government", "the reenfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and the restitution of the Southern people to all their rights". The latter is a reference to the Ironclad Oath , which stripped the vote from white persons who refused to swear that they had not borne arms against
4410-525: The Quran , the hadith , and sharia law . These include retribution by armed jihad for the perceived injustices of unbelievers against Muslims; the belief that many self-proclaimed Muslims have violated Islamic law and are disbelievers ( takfir ); the perceived necessity of restoring Islam by establishing sharia law , including by reestablishing the Caliphate as a pan-Islamic state (e.g. ISIS );
4536-731: The Red Shirts , which started in Mississippi and developed chapters in the Carolinas. For instance, the Red Shirts are credited with helping elect Wade Hampton as governor in South Carolina. They were described as acting as the military arm of the Democratic Party and are attributed with helping white Democrats regain control of state legislatures throughout the South. In 1915, the second Klan
4662-473: The Taliban , and al-Qaeda – were responsible for 74% of all deaths from terrorism . In some of the worst-affected Muslim-majority regions, these terrorists have been met by armed, independent resistance groups. Islamist terrorism has also been roundly condemned by prominent Islamic figures and groups. Justifications given for attacks on civilians by Islamic extremist groups come from their interpretations of
4788-604: The 'Palestinian Question' regarding disputes over occupied lands", the spokesman replied, "Palestinians should be transferred out of Israeli territories. They can live in any of the other many Arab states. We are against all land concessions to our enemies. We are against the release of terrorist prisoners from Israeli prisons. ." Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism or Jihadi terrorism ) refers to terrorist acts carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists . Since at least
4914-763: The 1940s. Klan organizers also operated in Canada , especially in Saskatchewan in 1926–1928, where Klansmen denounced immigrants from Eastern Europe as a threat to Canada's "Anglo-Saxon" heritage. The "Ku Klux Klan" name was used by numerous independent local groups opposing the civil rights movement and desegregation , especially in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, they often forged alliances with Southern police departments, as in Birmingham, Alabama ; or with governor's offices, as with George Wallace of Alabama . Several members of Klan groups were convicted of murder in
5040-543: The 1990s, Islamist terrorist incidents have occurred around the world and targeted both Muslims and non-Muslims. Most attacks have been concentrated in Muslim-majority countries , with studies finding 80-90% of terrorist victims to be Muslim. The annual number of fatalities from terrorist attacks grew sharply from 2011 to 2014 when it reached a peak of 33,438, before declining to 13,826 in 2019. As of 2015, four Islamic extremist groups – Islamic State , Boko Haram ,
5166-549: The Book but infidels/kafir waging " war on Islam ". (These ideas are often related and overlapping.) Qutbism is named after Egyptian Islamist theoretician Sayyid Qutb , who wrote a manifesto (known as Milestones ), while in prison. Qutb is said to have laid out the ideological foundation of Salafi jihadism (according to Bruce Livesey); his ideas are said to have formed "the modern Islamist movement" (according to Gilles Kepel); which along with other "violent Islamic thought", became
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5292-769: The Global Terrorism Index, deaths from terrorism peaked in 2014 and have fallen each year since then until 2019 (the last year the study had numbers for), making a decline of more than half (59% or 13,826 deaths) from their peak. The five countries "hardest hit" by terrorism continue to be Muslims countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and Somalia. The motivation of Islamic terrorists has been disputed. Some (such as Maajid Nawaz , Graeme Wood , and Ibn Warraq ) attribute it to extremist interpretations of Islam; others (Mehdi Hasan) to some combination of political grievance and social-psychological maladjustment; and still others (such as James L. Payne and Michael Scheuer ) to
5418-448: The JIDF is "sometimes guilty of sweeping generalizations of its own", citing a 2008 interview published on Facebook critic Brian Cuban 's site in which a JIDF representative discussed "the issues surrounding [then-candidate Barack Obama 's] terrorist connections as well as his racist and anti-Semitic church, which has supported Hamas and the Rev. Louis Farrakhan ", and the reply when asked how
5544-504: The Jewish and Muslim communities saw the JIDF, that "99.9% of Muslims hate us". CNN quoted a JIDF spokesperson as saying he would rather people not focus on those specific quotations as the interview had been "informal" and Cuban "would not let us correct any of our statements after we quickly answered him to help him meet his deadline." Asked in the Cuban interview, "What is the position of the JIDF on
5670-501: The Jewish people in every way imaginable." Defunct Defunct During 2007, a controversy on Facebook was reported involving "the drop-down list of places members can use to show where they live". A Facebook group titled, "Palestine Is not a country ... Delist it from Facebook as a country!", had been formed in 2007 which petitioned Facebook management to remove Palestine from Facebook's list of countries. Several Facebook groups formed to support or oppose this removal including "Israel
5796-576: The Klan had no membership rosters, no chapters, and no local officers, so it was difficult for observers to judge its membership. It had created a sensation by the dramatic nature of its masked forays and because of its many murders. In 1870, a federal grand jury determined that the Klan was a " terrorist organization" and issued hundreds of indictments for crimes of violence and terrorism. Klan members were prosecuted, and many fled from areas that were under federal government jurisdiction, particularly in South Carolina. Many people not formally inducted into
5922-454: The Klan had used the Klan's costume to hide their identities when carrying out independent acts of violence. Forrest called for the Klan to disband in 1869, arguing that it was "being perverted from its original honorable and patriotic purposes, becoming injurious instead of subservient to the public peace". Historian Stanley Horn argues that "generally speaking, the Klan's end was more in the form of spotty, slow, and gradual disintegration than
6048-463: The Klan has an "unknown number of associates and supporters". The name was probably formed by combining the Greek kyklos ( κύκλος , which means circle) with clan . The word had previously been used for other fraternal organizations in the South such as Kuklos Adelphon . Six Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee , created the original Ku Klux Klan on December 24, 1865, shortly after
6174-432: The Klan is defined by non-overlapping time periods, comprising local chapters with little or no central direction. Each has advocated reactionary positions such as white nationalism , anti-immigration and—especially in later iterations— Nordicism , antisemitism , anti-Catholicism , right-wing populism , anti-communism , homophobia , anti-atheism , and Islamophobia . The first Klan, founded by Confederate veterans in
6300-555: The Ku Klux Klan , on which the film was based. When the film was shown in Atlanta in December of that year, Simmons and his new klansmen paraded to the theater in robes and pointed hoods – many on robed horses – just like in the film. These mass parades became another hallmark of the new Klan that had not existed in the original Reconstruction-era organization. Beginning in 1921, it adopted
6426-585: The Lebanese how effective a car bomb could be. Everything that we saw later with Hezbollah sprang from what they saw had happened after these operations." The year 1979 is widely considered a turning point in the rise of religiously motivated radicalism in the Muslim world. Several events are thought to be crucial for the proliferation of Islamist terrorism in the next decade, such as the Soviet-Afghan War and unprecedented support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and
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#17330855791076552-528: The Mideast conflict," Haaretz wrote. The group sought to have Palestinian villages listed as having been destroyed during the foundation of Israel removed from Google Earth and campaigned against the description of "Palestine" as a country. The JIDF organized a pro- Gilad Shalit campaign in 2009 on the social networking site Twitter . During the "Tweet4Shalit" campaign Twitter users drove the Gilad Shalit name to
6678-448: The Muslim world had become apostate or jahiliyah , he did not specifically takfir or call for the execution of any apostates, even those governing non-sharia governments Qutb did however emphasize that "the organizations and authorities" of the putatively Muslim countries were irredeemably corrupt and evil and would have to be abolished by "physical power and Jihad", by a "vanguard" movement of true Muslims. One who did argue this
6804-554: The Pakistani-supported Taliban militia in Afghanistan has gained several characteristics traditionally associated with state-sponsors of terrorism , providing logistical support, travel documentation, and training facilities. Since 1989 the increasing willingness of religious extremists to strike targets outside immediate country or regional areas highlights the global nature of contemporary terrorism. The 1993 bombing of
6930-543: The Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers". Shmuel Bar argues that while the importance of political and socioeconomic factors in Islamist terrorism is not in doubt, "In order to comprehend the motivation for these acts and to draw up an effective strategy for a war against terrorism, it is necessary to understand the religious-ideological factors — which are deeply embedded in Islam." Examining Europe, two studies of
7056-475: The RAND Corporation , in 1980, 2 out of 64 terrorist groups were categorized as having religious motivation while in 1995, almost half (26 out of 56) were religiously motivated with the majority having Islam as their guiding force. The Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent anti-Soviet mujahedin war, lasting from 1979 to 1989, started the rise and expansion of terrorist groups. Since their beginning in 1994,
7182-603: The Republican Party because they were being hoodwinked by the Loyal Leagues. One Alabama newspaper editor declared "The League is nothing more than a nigger Ku Klux Klan." Despite Gordon's and Forrest's work, local Klan units never accepted the Prescript and continued to operate autonomously. There were never hierarchical levels or state headquarters. Klan members used violence to settle old personal feuds and local grudges, as they worked to restore general white dominance in
7308-579: The South that adopted similar goals. Klan chapters promoted white supremacy and spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement in resistance to Reconstruction. Confederate veteran John W. Morton founded a KKK chapter in Nashville, Tennessee . As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder. "They targeted white Northern leaders, Southern sympathizers and politically active Blacks." In 1870 and 1871,
7434-599: The Southern Poverty Law Center puts it at 6,000 members total. The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to a false mythologized perception of America's " Anglo-Saxon " blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism . Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality , Christian denominations widely denounce them. The first Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee , on December 24, 1865, by six former officers of
7560-731: The US for anti-Soviet jihadists ; the Iranian Revolution and subsequent Iran-Iraq War as well as Khomeini 's active support for Shia groups fighting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon ; the Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca and subsequent Wahhabization of the Saudi government; and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty that was highly unpopular in some sections of the Muslim world. According to Bruce Hoffman of
7686-574: The Union. Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was elected the first grand wizard , and claimed to be the Klan's national leader. In an 1868 newspaper interview, Forrest stated that the Klan's primary opposition was to the Loyal Leagues , Republican state governments, people such as Tennessee governor William Gannaway Brownlow , and other " carpetbaggers " and " scalawags ". He argued that many Southerners believed that Black people were voting for
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#17330855791077812-649: The World Trade Center , and the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, are representative of this trend. According to research by the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag , between 11 September 2001 and 21 April 2019, there were 31,221 Islamist terrorism attacks, in which at least 146,811 people were killed. Many of the victims were Muslims, including most of the victims who were killed in attacks involving 12 or more deaths. According to
7938-685: The archetype of Muslim violence – not just to Westerners but also to Muslims themselves. Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan ( / ˌ k uː k l ʌ k s ˈ k l æ n , ˌ k j uː -/ ), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan , is the name of several American white supremacist , far-right hate groups . Various historians have characterized the Klan as America's first terrorist group. There have been three distinct iterations with various targets relative to time and place, including African Americans , Jews , and Catholics . Each iteration of
8064-555: The attackers by voice and mannerisms. "The kind of thing that men are afraid or ashamed to do openly, and by day, they accomplish secretly, masked, and at night." The KKK night riders "sometimes claimed to be ghosts of Confederate soldiers so, as they claimed, to frighten superstitious Blacks. Few freedmen took such nonsense seriously." The Klan attacked Black members of the Loyal Leagues and intimidated Southern Republicans and Freedmen's Bureau workers. When they killed Black political leaders, they also took heads of families, along with
8190-401: The background of Muslim terrorists—one of the UK and one of France—found little connection between terrorist acts performed in the name of Islam and the religious piety of the operatives. A "restricted" 2008 UK report of hundreds of case studies by the domestic counter-intelligence agency MI5 found that there was no "typical profile" of a terrorist, and that [f]ar from being religious zealots,
8316-433: The book Rise and Kill First asserted that Hezbollah 's 1983 campaign of coordinated terrorist attacks against American, French and Israeli military installations in Beirut drew inspiration from and directly mirrored the Haganah 's and Irgun 's 1946 bombing campaign against the British: both succeeded in creating an atmosphere of widespread fear which eventually forced the enemy to withdraw. Bergman further asserts that
8442-438: The broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the Black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life. To that end they worked to curb
8568-681: The civil rights provisions for individuals under the constitution. The Klan refused to voluntarily dissolve after the 1871 Klan Act, so President Grant issued a suspension of habeas corpus and stationed federal troops in nine South Carolina counties by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 . The Klansmen were apprehended and prosecuted in federal court. Judges Hugh Lennox Bond and George S. Bryan presided over South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials in Columbia, S.C., during December 1871. The defendants were given from three months to five years of incarceration with fines. More Black people served on juries in federal court than on local or state juries, so they had
8694-411: The clearing of Israeli settlements in the Gaza strip in 2005 – they regard this policy of trading Land for Peace as wrong." The newspaper wrote that "Ultimately the JIDF also wants to propagate ‘Jewish values on the Internet’. This leads to the self-appointed warriors against online-hatred to link their own homepage to a dubious site named ‘thereligionofpeace.com’. The JIDF website itself said "Mohammed
8820-415: The deaths of civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 and of children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. The United States government still considers the Klan to be a "subversive terrorist organization". In April 1997, FBI agents arrested four members of the True Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas for conspiracy to commit robbery and for conspiring to blow up
8946-493: The disrupted postwar society. The historian Elaine Frantz Parsons describes the membership: Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of anti-Black vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of Black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even
9072-531: The door and the porch was full. They treated her "gentlemanly and quietly" but complained of the heavy school-tax, said she must stop teaching and go away and warned her that they never gave a second notice. She heeded the warning and left the county. By 1868, two years after the Klan's creation, its activity was beginning to decrease. Members were hiding behind Klan masks and robes as a way to avoid prosecution for freelance violence. Many influential Southern Democrats feared that Klan lawlessness provided an excuse for
9198-456: The education, economic advancement, voting rights , and right to keep and bear arms of Black people. The Klan soon spread into nearly every Southern state, launching a reign of terror against Republican leaders both Black and white. Those political leaders assassinated during the campaign included Arkansas Congressman James M. Hinds , three members of the South Carolina legislature, and several men who served in constitutional conventions." In
9324-558: The era of the anti-colonial struggle in North Africa and the Middle East , coinciding with the creation of Israel in 1948, a series of Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist movements swept throughout the Arab and Islamic world. These movements were nationalist and revolutionary, but not Islamic. However, their view that terrorism could be effective in reaching their political goals generated
9450-429: The experts they consulted, [t]here was a consensus that the [US Government] should avoid unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers, or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims. Therefore, the experts counseled caution in using terms such as, "jihadist," "Islamic terrorist," "Islamist," and "holy warrior" as grandiose descriptions. Whether Islamic terrorism
9576-560: The failure of its leaders to control criminal elements and sadists. More fundamentally, it declined because it failed to achieve its central objective – the overthrow of Republican state governments in the South. After the Klan was suppressed, similar insurgent paramilitary groups arose that were explicitly directed at suppressing Republican voting and turning Republicans out of office: the White League , which started in Louisiana in 1874; and
9702-560: The federal government passed the Enforcement Acts , which were intended to prosecute and suppress Klan crimes. The first Klan had mixed results in terms of achieving its objectives. It seriously weakened the Black political leadership through its use of assassinations and threats of violence, and it drove some people out of politics. On the other hand, it caused a sharp backlash, with passage of federal laws that historian Eric Foner says were
9828-659: The federal government to retain its power over the South, and they began to turn against it. There were outlandish claims made, such as Georgian B. H. Hill stating "that some of these outrages were actually perpetrated by the political friends of the parties slain." Union Army veterans in mountainous Blount County, Alabama , organized "the anti-Ku Klux". They put an end to violence by threatening Klansmen with reprisals unless they stopped whipping Unionists and burning Black churches and schools. Armed Black people formed their own defense in Bennettsville, South Carolina , and patrolled
9954-567: The first phase of modern international terrorism. In the late 1960s, Palestinian secular movements such as Al Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) began to target civilians outside the immediate arena of conflict. Following Israel's victory over Arab forces in 1967, Palestinian leaders began to realize that the Arab world was unable to defeat Israel in the battlefield. At
10080-488: The first six months of the Association's national recruitment campaign, Klan membership had increased by 85,000. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization's membership ranged from three to eight million members. In 1923, Simmons was ousted as leader of the KKK by Hiram Wesley Evans . From September 1923 there were two Ku Klux Klan organizations: the one founded by Simmons and led by Evans with its strength primarily in
10206-602: The form of localized and isolated groups that use the KKK name. They have focused on opposition to the civil rights movement , often using violence and murder to suppress activists. This manifestation is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center . As of 2016 , the Anti-Defamation League puts total KKK membership nationwide at around 3,000, while
10332-450: The glory and heavenly rewards of martyrdom ; and the belief in the supremacy of Islam over all other religions . The use of the phrase "Islamic terrorism" is disputed. In Western political speech, it has variously been called "counter-productive", "highly politicized, intellectually contestable" and "damaging to community relations", by those who disapprove of the characterization 'Islamic'. It has been argued that "Islamic terrorism"
10458-704: The group down, the JIDF said it somehow took control of the group in July 2008. According to a November 2008 article in Haaretz , the JIDF forwarded lists of Facebook groups that it deemed promoted hatred or violence to the website's administrators, hoping they would be removed. According to a man named "David" quoted in the Haaretz article, Facebook either did nothing or waited months before taking action. "David" told Haaretz that his group then decided to try to technically "intercept Facebook groups and make them impossible to access." The JIDF
10584-475: The hegemony of God". According to Indonesian Islamic leader Yahya Cholil Staquf in a 2017 Time interview, within the classical Islamic tradition the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is assumed to be one of segregation and enmity. In his view extremism and terrorism are linked with "the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy" and that radical Islamic movements are nothing new. He also added that Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism
10710-541: The high number of veterans in the population, but also to their effort to control the dramatically changed social situation by using extrajudicial means to restore white supremacy. In 1866, Mississippi governor William L. Sharkey reported that disorder, lack of control, and lawlessness were widespread; in some states armed bands of Confederate soldiers roamed at will. The Klan used public violence against Black people and their allies as intimidation. They burned houses and attacked and killed Black people , leaving their bodies on
10836-473: The ideals of the earliest Muslims". The 7th century Kharijites , according to some, started from an essentially political position but developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. The group was particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to takfir , whereby they declared Muslim opponents to be unbelievers and therefore worthy of death, and also by their strong resemblance to contemporary ISIL. During
10962-423: The ideology behind Islamic terrorist groups, but Al Qaeda and other terrorists are more commonly described as following a fusion of Qutbism and Wahhabism . Outside of these sects or religious movements, the religious ideology of Qutbism has influenced Islamic terrorism, along with religious themes and trends including Takfir , suicide attacks , and the belief that Jews and Christians are not People of
11088-499: The ideology known as " Qutbism that is the "center of gravity" of al-Qaeda and related groups (according to U.S. Army Colonel Dale C. Eikmeier). Qutb is thought to be a major influence on Al-Qaeda #2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri . In his manifesto (called "one of the most influential works in Arabic of the last half century"), Qutb preached: Eikmeier summarizes the tenets of Qutbism as being: While Sayyid Qutb preached that all of
11214-526: The influence of Israeli-sponsored terrorist operations on the emerging Islamists was also of operational nature: the Israeli proxy Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners had carried out multiple deadly truck bombings in Lebanon long before the emergence of Hezbollah. An Israeli Mossad agent told Bergman: "I saw from a distance one of the cars blowing up and demolishing an entire street. We were teaching
11340-470: The late 1860s, assaulted and murdered politically active Black people and their allies in the South . The second iteration of the Klan originated in the late 1910s, and was the first to use cross burnings and white-hooded robes. The KKK of the 1920s had a nationwide membership in the millions and reflected a cross-section of the native-born white English-speaking and Protestant population. The third Klan formed in
11466-517: The leaders of churches and community groups, because these people had many roles in society. Agents of the Freedmen's Bureau reported weekly assaults and murders of Black people. "Armed guerrilla warfare killed thousands of Negroes; political riots were staged; their causes or occasions were always obscure, their results always certain: ten to one hundred times as many Negroes were killed as whites." Masked men shot into houses and burned them, sometimes with
11592-415: The mid 20th century, largely as a reaction to the growing civil rights movement . It used murder and bombings to achieve its aims. All three movements have called for the "purification" of American society, and are all considered far-right extremist organizations. In each era, membership was secret and estimates of the total were highly exaggerated by both allies and enemies. The first Klan, established in
11718-557: The motivation of the individuals directly involved in carrying out the terror attacks are not necessarily religious and may stem from other reasons, religiously motivated organizations and governments are very often behind such attacks. Fundamentalist organizations and governments often encourage, fund, assist, incentivize or reward the actions of individuals they recognize as susceptible to be coerced into committing terror attacks, thus using people who are not always religiously motivated themselves to achieve religious ends. Hamas , for example,
11844-427: The names of Muslim members of such groups to "Mossad collaborator," among other actions. A website spokesman told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they don't break any laws and that the JIDF "prefers the terms 'seize control,' 'take over' or 'infiltrate' rather than 'hack to describe there actions.' In an interview with Arutz Sheva , Appletree maintained, "The Jewish establishment... has completely failed Israel and
11970-411: The nature of the challenges that face our generation. [...] At the same time, the terminology should also be strategic – it should avoid helping the terrorists by inflating the religious bases and glamorous appeal of their ideology. The office "consulted with some of the leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam to discuss the best terminology to use when describing the terrorist threat." Among
12096-506: The occupants still inside. They drove successful Black farmers off their land. "Generally, it can be reported that in North and South Carolina, in 18 months ending in June 1867, there were 197 murders and 548 cases of aggravated assault." Klan violence worked to suppress Black voting, and campaign seasons were deadly. More than 2,000 people were killed, wounded, or otherwise injured in Louisiana within
12222-453: The only objects of the Klan", according to Albert Stevens in 1907. The manual of rituals was printed by Laps D. McCord of Pulaski. The origins of the hood are uncertain; it may have been appropriated from the Spanish capirote hood, or it may be traced to the uniform of Southern Mardi Gras celebrations. According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities (1907), "Beginning in April, 1867, there
12348-559: The perpetrators and the targets are orthodox Sunni Muslims. Not long ago, a bombing in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province , killed Muslims, including women, who were applying to go on pilgrimage to Mecca . Overall, the trend is definitively in the direction of Muslim-on-Muslim violence. By a conservative accounting, more than three times as many Iraqis have been killed by suicide bombings in just three year (2003–6) as have Israelis in ten (from 1996–2006). Suicide bombing has become
12474-472: The prime minister of Pakistan, and academic Bruce Lawrence . Former US president Barack Obama explained why he used the term "terrorism" rather than "Islamic terrorism" in a 2016 townhall meeting saying, "There is no doubt, ... terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda or ISIL – They have perverted and distorted and tried to claim the mantle of Islam for an excuse for basically barbarism and death ... But what I have been careful about when I describe these issues
12600-568: The radical right-wing's perception of the Klan as outdated and unfashionable. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that between 2016 and 2019, the number of Klan groups in America dropped from 130 to just 51. A 2016 report by the Anti-Defamation League claims an estimate of just over 30 active Klan groups existing in the United States. Estimates of total collective membership range from about 3,000 to 8,000. In addition to its active membership,
12726-464: The roads. At an 1867 meeting in Nashville, Tennessee , Klan members gathered to try to create a hierarchical organization with local chapters eventually reporting to a national headquarters. Since most of the Klan's members were veterans, they were used to such military hierarchy, but the Klan never operated under this centralized structure. Local chapters and bands were highly independent. Former Confederate brigadier general George Gordon developed
12852-871: The same time, lessons drawn from the Jewish struggle against the British in Palestine and revolutionary movements across Latin America, North Africa and Southeast Asia, motivated the Palestinians to turn away from guerrilla warfare towards urban terrorism. These movements were secular in nature, though their international reach served to spread terrorist tactics worldwide. Moreover, the Arab Cold War between mostly US-aligned conservative Islamic monarchies (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan) and Soviet-aligned secular national-revolutionary governments (Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Iraq) inspired
12978-659: The scapegoat and the heretic." It preached "One Hundred Percent Americanism" and demanded the purification of politics, calling for strict morality and better enforcement of Prohibition . Its official rhetoric focused on the threat of the Catholic Church , using anti-Catholicism and nativism . Its appeal was directed exclusively toward white Protestants; it opposed Jews, Black people, Catholics, and newly arriving Southern and Eastern European immigrants such as Italians , Russians , and Lithuanians , many of whom were Jewish or Catholic. Some local groups threatened violence against rum runners and those they deemed "notorious sinners";
13104-611: The second highest trend on the day of his 23rd birthday. Tweets for Shalit ranged from the demand to "Free Shalit" to requests for international supervision of the case. The JIDF was recognized by the JTA as one of the "100 Most Influential Jewish Twitterers" in 2009 and was ranked as the top-ranked Jewish Newswire. In October 2008, the German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) wrote "the JIDF follows an open political agenda as well. Many of its members protested
13230-407: The south and northern states; it was funded by initiation fees and selling its members a standard white costume. The chapters did not have dues. It used K-words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and mass parades to intimidate others. It rapidly declined in the latter half of the 1920s. The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after 1950, in
13356-565: The southern United States, and a breakaway group led by Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson based in Evansville, Indiana with its membership primarily in the midwestern United States. Internal divisions, criminal behavior by leaders – especially Stephenson's conviction for the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer – and external opposition brought about a collapse in the membership of both groups. The main group's membership had dropped to about 30,000 by 1930. It finally faded away in
13482-464: The state. A riot and massacre occurred in a Meridian, Mississippi , courthouse, from which a Black state representative escaped by fleeing to the woods. The 1871 Civil Rights Act allowed the president to suspend habeas corpus . In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant signed Butler's legislation. The Ku Klux Klan Act and the Enforcement Act of 1870 were used by the federal government to enforce
13608-399: The streets to protect their homes. National sentiment gathered to crack down on the Klan, even though some Democrats at the national level questioned whether the Klan really existed, or believed that it was a creation of nervous Southern Republican governors. Many southern states began to pass anti-Klan legislation. In January 1871, Pennsylvania Republican senator John Scott convened
13734-494: The suicide attacker shahid (pl. shuhada , literally 'witness' and usually translated as 'martyr'). The idea being that the attacker died in order to testify his faith in God, for example while waging jihad bis saif ( jihad by the sword). The term "suicide" is never used because Islam has strong strictures against taking one's own life. According to author Sadakat Kadri, "the very idea that Muslims might blow themselves up for God
13860-418: The tactic has spread through the Muslim world "with astonishing speed and on a surprising course". First the targets were American soldiers, then mostly Israelis, including women and children. From Lebanon and Israel, the technique of suicide bombing moved to Iraq, where the targets have included mosques and shrines, and the intended victims have mostly been Shiite Iraqis . ... [In] Afghanistan , ... both
13986-619: The three, only Salafi Islam—specifically Salafi jihadism Islam—can be called involved in global terrorism, as it is connected with Al-Qaeda , ISIS , Boko Haram and other groups. (Terrorism among some members of the Barelvi sect is limited to attacks on alleged blasphemers in Pakistan, and the terrorism among Deobandi groups has "almost no" influence beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indian.) Another sect/movement known as Wahhabism (intertwined with non -jihadist Salafism ) has been accused of being
14112-494: The vast majority of a pro-Hezbollah fan page's 118,000 members. The JIDF sites says it has removed more than 100 antisemitic groups from Facebook, In September 2009 that it hijacked a Facebook group titled "Eliminate Israel from Being" and deleted more than 5,000 members before Facebook management "returned control of the site to its administrators." The JIDF criticized Facebook for allegedly condoning and hosting Holocaust denial groups on its network. The group charged that Facebook
14238-495: The violent episodes generally took place in the South. The Red Knights were a militant group organized in opposition to the Klan and responded violently to Klan provocations on several occasions. The second Klan was a formal fraternal organization , with a national and state structure. During the resurgence of the second Klan in the 1920s, its publicity was handled by the Southern Publicity Association . Within
14364-497: The wake of the Civil War , was a defining organization of the Reconstruction era . Federal law enforcement began taking action against it around 1871. The Klan sought to overthrow Republican state governments in the South, especially by using voter intimidation and targeted violence against African-American leaders. The Klan was organized into numerous independent chapters across the Southern United States. Each chapter
14490-482: Was Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj , the main theoretician of the Islamist group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat . who in his book Al-Farida al-gha'iba (The Neglected Duty), cited a fatwa issued in 1303 CE by the celebrated strict medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyyah . He had ruled that fighting and killing of the Mongol invaders who were invading Syria was not only permitted but obligatory according to Sharia. This
14616-718: Was a genocidal pedophile... Millions of Muslims promote the idea that if we "insult" him (despite the fact that he's dead), that we should be killed." The website said that Mohammad was a "false prophet" and that the " Islamic ideology itself... is determined to dominate the world, just as Nazism was." The website came out against plans to build an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in New York, "we are against ALL mosques. We are against Islam, just as we are against Nazism . Just as we don't wish to see Nazi institutions springing up everywhere, we don't need to see Islamic one's springing up everywhere, either." In May 2009, CNN wrote that
14742-455: Was a gradual transformation. ... The members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. They had played with an engine of power and mystery, though organized on entirely innocent lines, and found themselves overcome by a belief that something must lie behind it all—that there was, after all, a serious purpose, a work for the Klan to do." The KKK had no organizational structure above the chapter level. However, there were similar groups across
14868-584: Was autonomous and highly secretive about membership and plans. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks and pointed hats , designed to be terrifying and to hide their identities. The second Klan started in 1915 as a small group in Georgia . It suddenly started to grow after 1920 and flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, including urban areas of the Midwest and West . Taking inspiration from D. W. Griffith 's 1915 silent film The Birth of
14994-498: Was because the Mongols did not follow sharia law, and so even though they had converted to Islam (Ibn Taymiyyah argued) they were not really Muslims. Faraj preached that rulers such as Anwar Sadat were "rebels against the Laws of God [the shari'ah]", and "apostates from Islam" who have preserved nothing of Islam except its name. Another Islamic movement accused of being involved in terrorism
15120-489: Was founded atop Stone Mountain , Georgia, by William Joseph Simmons . While Simmons relied on documents from the original Klan and memories of some surviving elders, the revived Klan was based significantly on the wildly popular film The Birth of a Nation . The earlier Klan had not worn the white costumes and had not burned crosses; these aspects were introduced in Thomas Dixon 's book The Clansman: A Historical Romance of
15246-537: Was not an "uprising of a Muslim community that is victim to poverty and racism: only young people join, including converts". Roy believes terrorism/radicalism is "expressed in religious terms" because Somewhat in contradiction to this, a study surveying Muslims in Europe to examine how much Islamist ideology increases support for terrorism, found that "in Western countries affected by homegrown terrorism ... justifying terrorism
15372-418: Was particularly upset about Facebook groups praising the shooting of students at Jerusalem's Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in March 2008. In July 2009, the JIDF and Avi Dichter took credit for successfully pressuring Facebook into removing a fan page for Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah . The JIDF said it mobilized supporters to complain about the page to Facebook's owners. The JIDF website claims that it deleted
15498-482: Was prominent in many cities. Writer W. J. Cash , in his 1941 book The Mind of the South characterized the second Klan as "anti-Negro, anti-Alien, anti-Red, anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Darwin, anti-Modern, anti-Liberal, Fundamentalist, vastly Moral, [and] militantly Protestant. And summing up these fears, it brought them into focus with the tradition of the past, and above all with the ancient Southern pattern of high romantic histrionics, violence and mass coercion of
15624-488: Was returning to "moderate Islam"), Saudi Arabia spent many billions, not only through the Saudi government but through Islamic organizations, religious charities, and private sources, on dawah wahhabiya , i.e. spreading the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, This funding incentivized Muslim "schools, book publishers, magazines, newspapers, or even governments" around the world to "shape their behavior, speech, and thought in such
15750-621: Was termed " hacktivism " by the BBC and Haaretz . The JIDF web site was live in February 2014 with little activity, and is no longer available. According to the JIDF, they "formed as a grassroots effort in 2000, to mount mass e-mail campaigns, in response to the outbreak of the Second Intifada ." The website was run by a person who identified himself as "David Appletree." According to a reporter from The Jewish Week in 2009, he "[would] not say if that
15876-519: Was unheard of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on a battlefield." After 1983 the process was limited among Muslims to Hezbollah and other Lebanese Shi'a factions for more than a decade. Since then, the "vocabulary of martyrdom and sacrifice", videotaped pre-confession of faith by attackers have become part of "Islamic cultural consciousness", "instantly recognizable" to Muslims (according to Noah Feldman ), while
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