Close to home: how US far-right terror flourished in post-9/11 focus on Islam

The far right and white supremacists are responsible for the vast majority of extremist-related fatalities but only a fraction of counter-terrorism resources are devoted to them

The US government acted quickly after 9/11 to prevent further attacks by Islamic extremists in the US. Billions of dollars were spent on new law enforcement departments and vast powers were granted to agencies to surveil people in the US and abroad as George W Bush announced the war on terror.

But while the FBI, CIA, police and the newly created Department of Homeland Security scoured the country and the world for radicalized Muslims, an existing threat was overlooked - white supremacist extremists already in the US, whose numbers and influence have continued to grow in the last two decades.