Lone Wolves, Self-Styled Anarchists: the Disparate Actors Accused of Protest Violence
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Lone Wolves, Self-Styled Anarchists: the Disparate Actors Accused of Protest Violence
As flares of violence and destruction have disrupted largely peaceful demonstrations against police brutality over the past two weeks, federal and state officials have warned that members of extremist groups are at work behind the scenes.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Thursday the Justice Department had evidence that “extremist agitators” were hijacking protests to “pursue their own separate and violent agenda”—an assertion he and President Trump have repeated throughout the national unrest. Minnesota officials described a professional campaign of urban warfare involving domestic terrorists seeking to destroy Minneapolis and St. Paul. New York Police Department officials have said outside agitators were working to provoke violence and sow fear.
What has emerged from the protests—and in criminal charges filed across the country—is a diffuse collection of what appear to be self-styled anarchists and opportunists, lone actors and clusters of alleged extremist cells, with a range of allegiances, interests and motivations. Some may be bent on revolution, while others, bound by no apparent ideology at all, have been accused of vandalism, theft and violence.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lone-wolves-self-styled-anarchists-the-disparate-actors-accused-of-protest-violence/ar-BB15bsLQ?ocid=spartandhp
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