International Hate Group Designated As Terrorist Organization by the U.S.
The Terrorgram Collective has been designated as ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorists’ by the U.S. Department of State
On Monday, the U.S. Department of State (State) designated The Terrogram Collective and three of its leaders as a global terrorist organization. The designation comes after two of the group's leaders were charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in September on a 15-count indictment for soliciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officials.
The indictments also allege that Dallas Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Matthew Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho conspired to provide material support to terrorists. The indictment charges include one count of conspiracy, four counts of soliciting hate crimes, three counts of soliciting the murder of federal officials, three counts of doxing federal officials, one count of threatening communications, two counts of distributing bombmaking instructions, and one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
“These defendants are alleged to be the leaders of Terrorgram Collective, a transnational terrorist group that our investigation found is responsible for soliciting hate crimes and the murder of government officials and providing support to terrorists,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in September. “Whether motivated by racial bias or antagonism toward government and societal norms, such behavior will not be tolerated. Terrorism is still the FBI’s number one priority, and working with our partners we are committed to investigating and holding accountable those who break the laws and assist violent actors in lethal plots.”
According to the DOJ, the two men incited Terrorgram users to commit attacks to further white supremacist accelerationism. The indictment alleges Humber, Allison, and other members of the Terrorgram Collective incited the shootings of three people (killing two) outside of an LGBT bar in Slovakia, a planned attack on energy facilities in New Jersey, and five people being stabbed near a mosque in Turkey.
The other leaders of the Terrogram Network designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) by State are channel administrator Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira, a Brazilian national living in Brazil; senior member Noah Licul, a Croatian national living in Croatia; and channel administrator Hendrik-Wahl Muller, a South African national living in South Africa.
“Terrorgram is a transnational terrorist group that primarily operates on the social media and digital messaging platform Telegram and has been connected to terrorist attacks in multiple countries,” said State spokesperson Matt Miller. “The group promotes violent white supremacism, solicits attacks on perceived adversaries, and provides guidance and instructional materials on tactics, methods, and targets for attacks, including on critical infrastructure and government officials. The group also glorifies those who have conducted such attacks.”
In September, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, and Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement & Intelligence issued a joint statement commending Humber and Allison’s indictments.
“We commend the Department of Justice for its critical counterterrorism work in these arrests. It is clear that as we aim to stop the proliferation of terrorism on foreign, cloud-based messaging apps, we must remain focused on domestic racially motivated extremist groups, in addition to Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” reads the joint statement. “Notably, this indictment shows that the leadership of the Terrorgram Collective, a white supremacist Telegram network that promotes terrorism and incited terrorist attacks, was based in the United States.
The Terrorgram Network was created to build coalitions through a broader network of hate groups across the globe and coordinate attacks against nonwhite, non-cisgendered groups. The group lionized far-right mass shooters and terrorist attacks like that of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 167 people and the Unabomber who killed three using pipe bombs in what it calls “Saints Culture” to connect like-minded people to its Telegram channels.
Saints Culture is the deification of members of far-right organizations, such as the Christchurch, New Zealand terrorist attack at two mosques killing 51 people. The shooter, Brenton Tarrant, was immediately elevated to sainthood by members of far-right accelerationist groups. Others considered saints by members of the Terrorgram Network are the El Paso shooter, the Buffalo shooter, and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter alongside James Earl Ray, the assassin who killed Martin Luther King Jr.
Various channels on Telegram publish calendars celebrating the dates of far-right attacks and other milestones including the arrests, deaths, and birthdays of attackers. Members also create fact sheets breaking down the details of each attack into easy-to-read paragraphs along with the death tolls and the number of wounded, attack method, and status of each killer with montages of their photos, pictures of their weapons, victims, and crime scenes.
“As a result of our actions, all property and interests in property of those designated today that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and all U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them,’ said Miller. “Terrorist designations expose and isolate entities and individuals and prevent them from exploiting the U.S. financial system. Moreover, designations can assist the law enforcement activities of U.S. agencies and other relevant enforcement entities and governments.”
While State exudes confidence that this will hamper the efforts of the international far-right hate group, the impact remains unclear as the groups tend to evolve to meet the demands of such actions rapidly. As we have seen time and again, white nationalist accelerationist groups often change names and rebrand rather easily thus, maintaining their organizational concerted efforts to inflict harm across the globe and conduct attacks on infrastructure.
Read the 15-Count Indictment
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Always rich when the three letter agencies find a terror group that they’ve been grooming for years which has now end up outside their MKUltra Jan6 and cointelpro permitted activities.