Within the waning days of the Biden administration, the U.S. Division of State took its first main step in opposition to terrorism teams primarily centered on what is known as “accelerationism” – the trouble to encourage unbiased followers to have interaction in violence in ways in which broadly destabilize society. The U.S. authorities has lengthy focused actively violent terrorist organizations reminiscent of al-Qaida – the group behind the 9/11 assaults – and the Islamic State group, which carried out beheadings of harmless civilians in Iraq and Syria.
Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray repeatedly warned Congress in regards to the risk to nationwide safety from far-right accelerationist teams. In a transfer to answer these warnings, the Biden administration labeled the online-only “Terrorgram Collective” and three of its leaders as specifically designated international terrorists, which implies their monetary belongings are frozen and anybody who tries to assist them might be arrested.
The Terrorgram Collective goals to destroy the present international financial and political construction and spark a struggle between white folks and other people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. To perform that, it maintains an internet discussion board on the Telegram social media platform. The discussion board’s posts, from leaders and followers alike, are characterised by folks spouting violent rhetoric and incitement to violence in opposition to minorities, Jewish folks and governments.
Widespread radicalization
The State Division’s motion additionally particularly targets two U.S. residents: Dallas Humber of California and Matthew Allison of Idaho, who allegedly performed main roles within the Terrorgram Collective and are dealing with federal costs for soliciting the homicide of presidency officers.
As my colleagues at Middlebury’s Middle on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism wrote in a 2022 report, Terrorgram’s hazard is primarily in its potential to unfold far-right propaganda to radicalize nearly anybody energetic on Telegram or elsewhere on-line.
The State Division has not attributed particular assaults to the Terrorgram Collective however relatively warns of its affect and potential to encourage assaults by individuals who encounter the concepts it spreads. As an illustration, Terrorgram materials was reportedly used as the idea for writings by a 17-year-old highschool pupil who killed two fellow college students and injured a 3rd in a Jan. 22, 2025, college taking pictures in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Telegram app icon on a smartphone display.
Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto by way of Getty Photographs
Little focusing on of fascist teams
The Terrorgram motion got here seven months after the Biden administration’s labeling of a Scandinavia-based far-right extremist group, the Nordic Resistance Motion, as terrorists as effectively.
These have been two of simply 3 times fascist extremist teams anyplace on this planet have been labeled terrorists by the U.S. authorities. Early in his first time period, President Donald Trump’s State Division did label one far-right group as a specifically designated international terrorist group: the Russian Imperial Motion, based mostly in Russia.
However as the previous head of the State Division workplace that sanctions terrorists, I do know that neither Trump nor Biden marshaled the complete pressure of the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts in opposition to these teams.
There’s a hierarchy within the U.S. authorities’s labels for these organizations. That hierarchy displays the diploma of hazard a corporation poses in addition to the power of the U.S. response to it.
The best-level designation and essentially the most important sanctions the U.S. authorities can impose come from putting a bunch on the State Division’s record of overseas terrorist organizations. That record contains teams reminiscent of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group – additionally referred to as ISIS or ISIL – that are topic to asset freezes and prolonged jail sentences and are barred from getting into the U.S.
The second-tier record covers what are referred to as specifically designated international terrorists, which carries comparable, however much less extreme, restrictions.
It’s simpler to show somebody did one thing to assist a bunch on the overseas terrorist group record than to show assist for a bunch on the specifically designated record. And jail time for overseas terrorist group backers is usually longer.
All three right-wing teams are on the specifically designated record, although the Trump administration may improve them to the top-level record, as Trump has requested the State Division to do with the Houthi militants in Yemen.