Steven,+Ryan,+Mikey,+and+Matthew


 * Hamas: Foreign**
 * Hamas is the Palestinian Islamic political party that governs the Gaza Strip.
 * Hamas also has a military wing which is considered a terrorist organization by most of the world.
 * Hamas’s main goal is to replace Israel and the Palestinian Territories with one unified Islamic Palestinian state.
 * From 2000-2004, Hamas was responsible for killing nearly 400 Israelis and wounding 2,000 in hundreds of attacks.
 * Because of the United State’s close alliance with Israel, relations with Hamas are poor and have threatened the United States through covert cells on US soil.


 * al-Qaeda: Foreign**
 * Al-Qaeda is a global militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s.
 * Al-Qaeda consists of both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for a global Jihad and a strict interpretation of sharia law.
 * They have attacked many civilian and military targets in various countries, such as the 9/11 attacks, the 1998 US embassy bombings, and the 2002 Bali bombings
 * Al-Qaeda’s goals include:
 * 1) Provoke the United States into invading a Muslim country
 * 2) Incite local resistance to occupying forces
 * 3) Expand the conflict to neighboring countries, and engage the US in a long war of attrition
 * 4) Convert al-Qaeda into an ideology and set of operating principles that can be loosely franchised in other countries without requiring direct command and control, and via these franchises incite attacks against countries allied with the U.S. until they withdraw from the conflict
 * 5) The U.S. economy will finally collapse under the strain of multiple engagements in numerous places, making the worldwide economic system which is dependent on the U.S. also collapse leading to global political instability, which in turn leads to a global jihad led by al-Qaeda

// Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party – Front (DHKP/C) **[Foreign]** //
 * The organization was originally formed in 1978 in Turkey.
 * The group promotes a Marxist-Leninist ideology and is vehemently anti-US, anti-NATO, and anti-Turkish establishment.
 * Its goals include the founding of a socialist state and the abolition of one- to three-man prison cells, called F-type prisons, in Turkey.
 * DHKP/C finances its activities chiefly through donations and extortion.
 * The group relies mostly on improvised explosive devices (IED’s) to do its damage.
 * Attacks on US soft targets in Iraq in 2003 were probably caused by the implementation of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

// Aryan Nations **[Domestic]** //
 * It is a white supremacist religious organization originally based in Hayden Lake, Idaho.
 * In September 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $6.3 million judgment against Aryan Nations from an Idaho jury who awarded punitive and compensatory damages to a woman and her son who were beaten with rifles by drunken Aryan Nations security guards in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in July 1998. The woman and her son were driving near the Aryan Nations compound when their car backfired, which the guards claimed to misinterpret as gunfire. The guards fired at the car, striking it several times, leading the car to crash, after which one of the Aryan Nations guards held the Keenans at gunpoint.
 * In the summer of 2004 the Aryan Nations moved to Sebring, Florida.

// Army of God **[Domestic]** //
 * The AOG is a Christian terrorist anti-abortion organization that sanctions the use of force to combat abortion in the United States.
 * The earliest documented incidence of the Army of God being involved with anti-abortion activity occurred in 1982. Three men associated with the organization held Hector Zevallos, an abortion doctor, and his wife, Rosalee Jean, hostage. The hostages were later released unharmed. The "East Coast division" of the AOG claimed responsibility when three men, including Michael Bray, planted bombs at seven abortion clinics in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. in 1985.
 * The group is also associated with a number of assassinations of abortion providers. Some of these assassins, such as Shelley Shannon, claimed association with the AOG; in other cases, while the assassin expressed no affiliation with the group, the AOG has lionized their acts and taken up their cause.

**The Earth Liberation Front (ELF)** Also known as “Elves” or “The Elves” is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF press office, use “economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment”. ELF is carried out against facilities and companies involved in: Logging, Deforestation, SUV sales and many more Techniques involve destruction of property, by either using tools to disable or the use of arson to destroy what activists believe is being used to injure animals, people or the environment.

**James Wenneker von Brunn** A white supremacist and holocaust denier He said “ The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by the Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America’s money. Jews control the mass media.\ Several news agencies have noted the timing of the June 10 shooting came shortly after Obama’s June 5th visit to and speech at the Buchenwald concentration camp, and that “President Obama’s recent visit to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, in Germany, may have set off the shooter.

Al Shabaab:

The goal of Al-Shabaab is to rage jihad on all enemies of Islam. They want to take over Somalia (which they are based in) and make it a strict Islamic state. They already control southern portions of the country, and enforce strict Sharia law. The militants come from a variety of Muslim clans throughout Somalia. They commit numerous attacks in the cities of Somalia. Along with the regions the clans attack and hold, they also have suicide bombers in the north of the country. Their specialty is car-bombs, and they’re well known for them. The group has trouble holding on to what they capture, and have to let go of it often, contributing to instability of region. They are sworn enemies of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia.

Hezbollah:

This group comes from Lebanon. They are also a political party within the country, currently holding 12 parliament and two cabinet seats. The group is very anti-Israel. They would like to see the country eventually wiped from the world. The group emerged in the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The group would also like to “control all imperial party that exists in Lebanon.” They also want the country "with full freedom the system of government they want”. They have been accused of supporting terrorism, along with Iran. They committed 36 suicide bomber attacks between 1982 and 1986, killing 649 people. They also attacked parts of Egypt for recognizing Israel. They also were responsible for the Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, the Lebanon hostage crisis from 1982 to 1992, and the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. marines, 58 French paratroopers and 6 civilians at the US and French barracks in Beirut.

KKK:

The KKK was established in the late 1860s after the Civil war. They advocate extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism. They have also become anti-communist. Their most recent incarnations of the group are mostly anti-immigration and anti-Latino. They have traditionally used many terror tactics. They were famous for lynching black people throughout their reign of terror in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They do exist still today, but are not nearly as radical or big. They mostly are in the southern U.S. today, where as they used to have a strong presence in virtually every state. Two KKK members were put to death for lynching a black man in 1981 in Alabama. The KKK is currently also working on restricting gay rights. Its numbers are slowly declining. Many of the remaining Klan members are teaming up with Neo-Nazis.


 * Conclusion:**
 * 1) The threat of terrorism to the United States comes from mostly outside our borders
 * 2) Most of these terrorist groups rationalize their actions based on religious beliefs or nationalism such as groups like al-qaeda and Hamas
 * 3) Yes, because the US has been such a large target for terrorism around the world it makes us even more fearful of it.