US federal police are worried about the risk of violent clashes between extremist groups in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election, its director, Christopher Wray, said on Thursday.
FBI is monitoring armed groups that have defied each other on the sidelines of anti-racist protests in Portland, northwestern United States, or Kenosha, near the Great Lakes, he said at a congressional hearing .
“We now have additional fuel for an eruption of violence,” Wray told elected officials in the House of Representatives.
“We have groups with opposing views which add to the volatility and danger of the situation,” he added. “We have seen it in several cities. It’s a leveraging force, in a bad sense, and that worries me. “
Far-right militias and activists calling themselves “anti-fascist” have joined the demonstrators calling for police reforms and an end to racism in the United States. Their members have already died several times.
A 17-year-old, who had joined armed militias claiming to defend Kenosha from “rioters,” killed two anti-racist protesters in late August.
In Portland, a claimed “anti-fascist” shot dead a sympathizer of a local far-right group, before being killed by police during his arrest.
For Christopher Wray, among violent extremists, “the people who subscribe to the ideology of white supremacy are certainly the most numerous” and have claimed more victims in the United States than the jihadists after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Recently, the FBI has also noted an increase in attacks motivated by hostility to the government, or any form of authority, such as the Boogaloo movement, which is betting on a second civil war. One of his supporters killed two police officers in California in May.