Hate groups take liking for crisis

Washington: For 20 years, Bart McIntyre has tracked white supremacist movements, even spending two years undercover in Alabama to penetrate a violent young band of criminals who called themselves the Confederate Hammerskins.

Now, as McIntyre prepares to retire from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), he and other analysts are warning that the threat from hate groups and splinter organisations connected to the Klan should not be underestimated, especially at a time of economic unrest.

"In society, you have a very small number of people who are going to push the envelope and take it to the next step," said McIntyre, the resident ATF agent in charge in Roanoke, Virginia.

Veteran investigators say they have advocated for increased attention to the problem since late September, when the nation's economic troubles widened.

The number of US hate groups has increased by 48 per cent, to 888, since 2000, according to experts at the Southern Poverty Law Centre, an independent organisation that monitors racist movements.

Although questions persist about the ability of such groups to carry out violent plans, several recent national developments have combined to worry analysts, said Mark Potok, chief of the law centre's Intelligence Project.

Demographic changes

In addition to the economic downturn, Potok cited rising immigration, demographic changes that predict whites will not be a majority within a few decades, and what some might see as "the final insult - a black man in the White House."

The US attorney in Brooklyn last week indicted three Staten Island men on hate crimes charges, alleging that they assaulted black residents "in retaliation for President-elect Barack Obama's election victory".

"The number of real, hard-core hate-mongers is quite low," said Brian Levin, director of the Centre for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino. "The major risk is some splintered part of a hate group or an unstable person who uses the internet to identify methods, targets, timing and opportunity."

The FBI reported in October that the number of hate crime incidents dropped last year by a little more than 1 per cent, to 7,624.

At the same time, according to the Anti-Defamation League, "most sections of the country have seen a significant and troubling resurgence of racist skinhead activity" over the past five years.