Capitol attackers have long threatened violence in rural American west

Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers have threatened federal employees and institutions that steward public lands

When the full story of the 6 January storming of the US Capitol building is told, historians will have to make sense of what might seem an odd footnote. The two most prominent rightwing militia groups that participated in the mob onslaught on Congress - the Three Percenters, based in Idaho, and the Oath Keepers, based in Nevada - cut their teeth in obscure corners of the American west, where for close to a decade they have threatened violence against federal employees and institutions that steward the nation's public lands.

Related: 'It was just a free-for-all': my day photographing the Capitol attack