Yesterday a Philadelphia teenager was arrested for terrorism, accused of working online with the Islamic group Kata’ib al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad (“The Battalions of Unity and Jihad”). This reminded me that I hadn’t perused the State Department list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations for a year or two–since I’ve not taught history of terrorism lately. It’s dirty work, but someone has to do it. So here goes.

The State Department list has no date, but the most recent group was added on December 1, 2021. This is curious, since the aforementioned KTJ was designated March 7, 2022 but is not on the list itself. In any event, there are 68 total terrorist organizations listed, 55 of which are Muslim (81%). Another 6 are Marxist-Leninist (9%); 6 are nationalist (9%); and 1 is anarchist (1%).

Of the Muslim ones, in comparison to the whole, 49 are Sunni, 5 Shiite and one Sufi. [I have to use the archaic term for the smaller branch of Islam, and the Western transliteration of Bin Laden’s group, as WordPress goes bonkers when you attempt to use the proper symbols for the actual Arabic transliterations of those terms.} As you might expect, the specific countries with the most terrorist groups operating on their soil–four each–are Iraq, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Afghanistan would have more, but since the Taliban retook control of the country, following the Biden Administration’s humiliating withdrawal, that group has been de-listed from many countries’ terrorist lists. (In fact, American aid is likely making its way to the Taliban government, as well as to other groups. Well-played, former insurgents.)

Islamic State (IS) and its branches, along with al-Qa`idah (AQ) and its, remain the world’s deadliest terrorist groups. Of the 6700 people killed by terrorists in 2022, IS was responsible for 62% of those deaths.

Logo of the Egyptian terrorist group Harakat Sawa`d Misr, “Egyptian Arms Movement.” The AK-47 is twisted into the acronym HSM. The subtitle says “With our arms we defend our revolution.”

The biggest takeaway here is this: despite the Biden Administration’s incessant efforts to gin up “white supremacy” as a terrorist threat (which I examined at length in May of this year), it’s simply not. While some anarchists and Marxist-Leninists are white, they are motivated by ideologies other than melanin content. What about Nationalist groups, of which there are six on the list? These are the Continuity Irish Republican Army, New Irish Republican Army, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (in Sri Lanka), Palestine Liberation Front, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and PFLP-General Command. It’s problematic to cast Sri Lankans and Palestinians as white supremacists. So that leaves the Irish options to support Uncle Joe’s tired thesis propaganda. But the CIRA and NIRA just want to, as they see it, give Ireland back to the Irish. Not to hand out Klan hoods.

By the way, the FBI (no doubt inadvertently) refutes Biden’s ridiculous claim. There are 24 individuals “charged with federal crimes in the United States” on its “Most Wanted Terrorists” page. Of those, 22 are Muslim. Another is a black woman who killed a New Jersey state trooper. Only one is white, and he’s wanted for blowing up biotech facilities in California. On the sub-page for “Domestic Terrorism” you won’t find Donald J. Trump, PTA members, or your local Catholic parish. Instead, there are 10 folks, four black and six white. Here are the latter’s ideologies or acts: anti-apartheid activist who threw acid in a policeman’s face; Animal Liberation Front/Earth Liberation Front activist who torched government buildings; Black Panther-sympathetic plane hijacker; criminal Communist seeking to overthrow the US government; bomber of a building at University of Wisconsin; and Hispanic chap who hijacked a plane to Cuba.

Most of the world’s terrorists are Muslim. And the most deadly terrorist groups are Muslim. Yet the new “National Intelligence Strategy” of the US mentions “terrorist organizations” only once; and “counterterrorism” only in terms of the “tools, techniques and procedures” learned from it being adapted to “other missions.” Notably “climate change.”

It won’t be possible to subdue this legion of Islamic jihadists as long as our government pretends, purely for political purposes, that the real threat is something else. Until then, it’s we who are shackled by chains of deceit–not the strong man of terrorism.

[The blogpost title, and the final paragraph, reference the account of the Gerasene demoniac in the Gospel of St. Mark 5:1-20.]