New U.S. counterterror strategy focuses on drug cartels but omits right-wing extremism
PBS News Hour - Segments
PBS NewsHour
4.1 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | American counter-terror officials are meeting today with officials from other allied nations |
| 0:06.0 | to coordinate efforts against what the U.S. calls deadly threats from terror groups and non-state actors. |
| 0:12.0 | But as William Brangham reports, America's recently released strategy to fight terrorism contains some unusual targets. |
| 0:19.0 | Omna, the U.S.'s counter-terrorism strategy, detailed in a 16-page memo released on Tuesday, |
| 0:26.3 | identifies three main terror threats facing the U.S., narco-terrorists and transnational gangs, |
| 0:33.0 | legacy Islamist terrorists, and violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists. |
| 0:40.3 | That last group is later defined as those whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, |
| 0:47.3 | and anarchist, citing, among other threats, the man accused of murdering conservative activist |
| 0:53.3 | Charlie Kirk. The memo makes no mention of murdering conservative activist Charlie Kirk. |
| 0:55.0 | The memo makes no mention of right-wing extremist groups, despite research from the U.S. |
| 1:00.5 | government and others, indicating those groups are responsible for the majority of violent |
| 1:05.8 | attacks over the last years. |
| 1:08.3 | So for more on America's counterterror strategy, we are joined by Colin Clark. |
| 1:13.2 | He's the executive director of the Sufant Center, where he focuses on domestic and international |
| 1:18.3 | terrorism. Colin, thank you so much for being here. On first blush, what is your reaction to |
| 1:24.4 | this counterterror strategy? Thanks for having me. |
| 1:28.5 | Well, it's about what I expected, if not a little bit subpar. |
| 1:33.4 | Look, there's a couple of things that it gets right, and that's the focus on hostages and wrongfully detained persons, |
| 1:40.7 | the focus on terrorist acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, and the enduring threat posed by jihadist groups. |
| 1:48.0 | But it gets a lot wrong. It gets wrong the omission of far-right terrorist groups. |
| 1:55.0 | It doesn't deal at all with domestic terrorism and homegrown violent extremism. |
| 1:59.0 | And the entire document is riddled with |
... |
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