FBI arrests four 'violent extremists' tied to US neo-Nazi group in Washington

The FBI says it has arrested four "violent extremists" tied to a neo-Nazi group, which threatened and harassed minorities and journalists across the US.

Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said at a press conference on Wednesday that the four people, described as “violent extremists,” were detained and charged in Seattle during the joint investigation that involved "racially motivated violent extremists from across the US.”

The Department of Justice announced the charges in Virginia and Washington State as part of a crackdown on violent white supremacists in the United States.

The arrests were made after an investigation into threats mailed to people in Washington, including a journalist and racial and religious minorities.

The four individuals were members of a group known as Atomwaffen, a small but violent paramilitary neo-Nazi group, which mounted an intimidation campaign against journalists and minorities. Atomwaffen is German for “atomic weapons.”

They sent posters including Nazi symbols, threatening language and masked figures with guns to their targets, including two activists and one Seattle television journalist, who had reported on Atomwaffen.

"These people sought to spread fear and terror with threats delivered to the doorstep of those who are critical of their activities,” said Brian Moran, the United States attorney for the Western District of Washington.

Prosecutors said two of the charged individuals, Kaleb James Cole, 24, and Cameron Brandon Shea, 24, praised members of Atomwaffen for targeting black or Jewish journalists.

The complaint stated that in January two other charged individuals were followed to an apartment complex in Phoenix, where a member of the Arizona Association of Black Journalists lived, and then proceeded to the home of the editor of a local Jewish publication. The two men were seen fleeing the area and a poster reading “Your Actions Have Consequences” was found taped on the editor’s bedroom window.

Extremist white supremacist propaganda has more than doubled in US: Report

A new report says incidents of extremist white supremacist propaganda across the US increased by 120 percent this year.

The members of the neo-Nazi group have been under investigation as part of a crackdown on white supremacists, who have increased their extremist activities across the United States recently.

According to a report published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), earlier this month, circulation of white supremacist propaganda material increased by 120 percent so far this year.

The numbers mark this year as the second consecutive year that the circulation of propaganda material has more than doubled.

The US-based organization said it also documented more than 2,713 cases — an average of more than seven per day—over the past year, compared with 1,214 cases in 2018.

The FBI also admitted previously that racist extremists are now considered a "national threat priority" presenting the same danger as foreign terror organizations.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that combating domestic terrorism and its "close cousin," hate crimes, are at the "top of the priority list" for the agency.

US president Donald Trump has long been accused of fanning the flames of racism and white supremacy in the US. Back in 2017, he publicly defended a rally by White supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, saying, “You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

Trump has also described refugees, immigrants and people of color, who cross into the US illegally as “animals.”

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