Demonstrators gather at the Lincoln Memorial for the "Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks" event in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug. 28, 2020. (Photo by Alan Chin/Xinhua)
All the three draft versions of the document state that white supremacist extremists are the deadliest threat and list it above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- White supremacist extremists will present the gravest terror threat to the United States through 2021, a draft document from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has shown.
The document is the first of the three draft versions released by Brookings senior fellow Benjamin Wittes of the same State of the Homeland Threat Assessment 2020.
An anti-protester holds a placard in front of the white supremacist-led rally near the White House, in Washington D.C., the United States, on Aug. 12, 2018. (Xinhua/Yang Chenglin)
The later two versions describe the threat from white supremacists with slightly different wording, but all the three drafts state that white supremacist extremists are the deadliest threat and list it above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups.
Although foreign terrorist groups will continue to call for attacks on the United States, they "probably will remain constrained in their ability to direct such plots over the next year," all three documents said.
Protesters rally in front of the White House during a protest over the death of George Floyd in Washington D.C., the United States, June 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
Wittes posted all the three versions on Twitter earlier this month, saying "I made this material public because I wanted there to be a benchmark about what the career folks at DHS actually assessed the threats to be against which we can measure whatever the administration actually chooses to release."
The annual threat assessment has not yet been published by the DHS. ■
