U.S. To Designate a Russian White Supremacist Group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization
The U.S. Department of State will designate the Russia Imperial Movement (RIM) as a foreign terrorist organization the New York Times reported on April 6. The designation of the RIM will mark the first time it has been applied to a white supremacist group.
While this move does have an important symbolic meaning by demonstrating that the Trump Administration is focused on mitigating the white supremacist threat, it will also have a significant practical impact.
First, designating a group as a foreign terrorist organization allows the government to charge those who attend training, spread propaganda or provide financial support to the group under statutes of material support of a terrorist organization. It would also allow members of the group to be designated as specially designated international terrorists and will face U.S. financial sanctions.
The material support of terrorism statute has frequently been used to charge jihadists in the past, but prosecutors have not been able to use it as a tool against white supremacists. This designation would change that and allow prosecutors to proactively charge those who receive such training before they can use their newly acquired skills.
RIM operates two facilities in St. Petersburg that provide training in terrorist tradecraft and paramilitary skills to white supremacists. Two of the three suspects convicted for in a Jan. 2017 bombing campaign in Sweden reportedly received training from RIM in St. Petersburg. This is significant because in the West, the primary threat from white supremacists emanates from lone actors and small cells, that often lack the tradecraft skills required to conduct successful terrorist attacks. Receiving training from a group such as RIM helps to make up for this lack of capability, in much the same way that jihadist training camps have done for grassroots jihadists in the west.
It is also no coincidence that a Russian group was selected for this first ever designation. Russia has supported extremists in the US and the West since Soviet times with the intent of creating division and disruption. Putin's Russia has continued this practice and RIM is not the only white supremacist group operating in Russia that is of concern to Washington. The founder and leader of the neo-Nazi group "The Base" is currently living in St. Petersburg, and it would not be surprising to see them also designated as a foreign terrorist group.
Non-Russian based groups such as the Azov Battalion, Sonnenkrieg Division, Atomwaffen, and others are also likely candidates for this same targeting as the U.S. and its allies attempt to mitigate the threat posed by these organizations and their supporters.
Advisor
4 年The organization is undoubtedly extremist, however, in my opinion, designating it as terrorist is not entirely justified.