THE RISE OF DOMESTIC TERROR

They wore gas masks and respirators. They dressed in all black. They covered every identifiable feature with practiced precision. Not because they feared tear gas — but because they didn't want to be found.

This is who is operating inside the United States of America right now. Not foreign agents. Not ISIS sleeper cells. American citizens. People who grew up here, went to school here, and made a deliberate decision to wage war — against law enforcement, against conservative voices, against the rule of law itself.

What you are about to read is not opinion. It is not political commentary. It is a documented, sourced, evidence-based accounting of a movement that has produced assassinations, ambushes on federal facilities, bombings, arson campaigns, and a body count — assembled from FBI reports, congressional investigations, federal court documents, and the 2026 U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy signed by President Trump.

The George Washington University's Program on Extremism — funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — spent years studying these groups and came to a conclusion most media refused to publish: Anarchist Violent Extremists (AVEs) were among the groups "presenting the greatest threats of violence" in the United States between 2015 and 2019. That was before the arson. Before the ambushes. Before the assassination of Charlie Kirk on a university stage.

They were right. And now the federal government has made it official for the first time in American history.

The DHS-funded GWU research identified three accelerating trends driving the movement toward lethality: the adoption of accelerationist ideology — using violence to collapse society; reciprocal radicalization, where left-wing extremists escalate in direct response to right-wing activity; and the growing willingness of individual actors to plan mass-casualty events against law enforcement and political opponents. Every prediction has now been validated on American soil.

FBI tracking data confirms the full scope. In FY2020, approximately 180 domestic terrorism subjects were arrested nationally. By FY2021 that number exploded to 800. Open FBI domestic terrorism investigations grew by 357 percent between 2013 and 2021. The warning signs were documented. The radicalization pathways were charted. The question was whether anyone was paying attention.

Joshua Jahn was 29 years old. He drove to a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Dallas, Texas, armed with a bolt-action rifle and a message written directly on his ammunition in blue ink: "ANTI-ICE."

He opened fire. One detainee was killed. Two others were critically wounded. Jahn died of a self-inflicted wound at the scene. Federal officials formally classified the attack as politically motivated and designated Jahn a violent left-wing extremist targeting border enforcement.

The New York Post's front page the following morning said what mainstream media refused to: "After months of Democrats calling ICE 'Nazis,' crazed shooter targets them — but kills a migrant." The person who died wasn't a federal agent. It was the very population Jahn claimed to defend. The rhetoric was not harmless. The result was a corpse.

Three months earlier, on July 4, 2025, a group of 10 to 12 individuals used fireworks to lure ICE personnel outside a facility in Alvarado, Texas. When officers exited, they were ambushed — between 20 and 30 rounds fired at unarmed corrections officers. A responding police officer was shot. Search warrants uncovered body armor, firearms, and materials bearing: "Fight ICE terror with class war."

The summer of 2020 produced a number most Americans still don't know: $2 billion in property damage across American cities — the most expensive civil unrest in U.S. history. Dozens died. Officers were injured by the thousands. Communities — predominantly minority communities — watched their neighborhoods burn.

In Portland, Oregon, federal agents inside the Hatfield Federal Courthouse were besieged for over 100 consecutive days. Rioters attempted to set it on fire while federal officers were inside. Protesters arrived equipped with gas masks, leaf blowers to redirect tear gas, and umbrellas to deflect less-lethal munitions. That level of tactical preparation is trained. It is coordinated. And it is documented in congressional testimony on record.

These are not anonymous. They have names. They have faces. They have charges, conviction records, and in at least one case, a death sentence waiting. They are the documented human product of a radicalization pipeline that the federal government spent years either dismissing or refusing to name — until now.