I’m not claiming that it’s any more or any less scary than it was in the past, but the world is a scary place. While there is much to be thankful for about living in the 21st century, there is also much to fear. The threat of nuclear annihilation is ramping back up to Cold War levels. Drug-resistant bacteria is rising.
For many of us, though, it’s the possibility of terrorist attacks that worries us the most. Scarcely a week goes by without a tragic news story about a terrorist attack. Many terrorist organizations exist around the world, and I’ve ranked the nine worst that are active today.
Most people probably agree that the definition of a terrorist organization is one that uses intimidation, the threat of violence, or actual violence to achieve political goals. By that definition, a group doesn’t have to resort to bombings to be classified as terrorists. All of the organizations on this list use intimidation and the threat of violence to achieve political goals; almost all of them use actual violence, too. Ergo, all of the groups on the following list legitimately meet the criteria for the definition of a terrorist organization.
9. Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
The SPLC is a far-left terrorist organization that fronts as an organization with the mission to expose hate groups. As PJ Media’s Tyler O’Neil wrote, “The SPLC rightly condemns various white nationalist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, but its ‘hate map’ also includes organizations with which it merely disagrees politically. As such, it is a deceptive propaganda tool against the Right and Christians.”
SPLC’s propaganda is used to foment hate and violence directed at conservatives. One of the SPLC’s targets, the Family Research Council, was singled out in 2012 by Floyd Lee Corkins III. Storming the FRC with a semi-automatic pistol, Corkins threatened to kill everyone in the building. The SPLC-inspired terrorist managed to shoot one person before being wrestled to the ground. More recently, James Hodgkinson’s attempted assassination of several GOP members of Congress has been indirectly linked to the SPLC. It’s only a matter of time before SPLC-inspired shooters manage to murder conservatives.
8. Alt-Right/KKK
White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Over the course of its history, the KKK and KKK-inspired racists have lynched almost 4,000 African-Americans. That figure doesn’t include the rapes, beatings, and other forms of terror enacted on immigrants, Jews, and anyone else deemed unwanted by the KKK. Having picked up their mantle, and even sometimes joining arm-in-arm with them, the alt-right is carrying the racist torch of terrorism (sometimes literally) into the 21st century.
7. Antifa/Black Lives Matter (BLM)
Members of Antifa at the counter protests to pro-Trump Freedom Rally in Portland on June 4, 2017 (Photo by Diego Diaz/Icon Sportswire) (Icon Sportswire via AP Images)
In a New York Times article, a member of Antifa is quoted as saying, “You need violence in order to protect non-violence.” Putting into practice what they preach, Antifa and BLM have produced quite the violent rap sheet this past year. From throwing urine-filled bottles at the Boston police to stabbing people over a haircut to using baseball bats on those with whom they disagree, it won’t be long before the neo-Marxist and racist organizations of Antifa and BLM resort to mass murder as their terror tactic of choice.
6. Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)
Since executing the largest terrorist attack on American soil, Al Qaeda has been hunted and decimated by the U.S. military. Make no mistake, although the War on Terror has greatly weakened the organization, Al Qaeda is still wreaking terror. Instead of a highly organized terror group led by rich leaders, Al Qaeda is now mostly a group of lone-wolf type individuals or small terror cells still engaged in suicide bombings. However, as late as 2015, Al Qaeda was responsible for 1,620 deaths in one year according to the Global Terrorism Index.
5. Hezbollah
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah addresses a crowd in southern Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 24, 2015. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Based in Lebanon, Hezbollah likes to cast itself as a legitimate political party. In reality, Hezbollah is an Iran-sponsored terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Among other recent terrorist activities, Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 2008, trains Shia insurgents in Iraq to fight U.S. soldiers, and was responsible for the 1996 Khobar Tower bombing that killed nineteen members of the U.S. military.
4. The Taliban
Taliban fighters react to a speech by their senior leader in the Shindand district of Herat province, Afghanistan, on May 27, 2016. (AP Photos/Allauddin Khan, File)
It didn’t take long for the Taliban to respond to President Trump’s Afghan speech. PJ Media’s Bridget Johnson reports that “the Taliban vowed to create ‘a graveyard for the American Empire’ with ‘lofty spirits’ after President Trump didn’t heed their lobbying for a withdrawal from Afghanistan.” For those who have assumed (wrongly) that the Taliban was mostly defeated, the terrorist group’s threats may sound hollow. However, they are not making hollow threats. The Taliban is still killing over 4,000 people a year and is determined to overrun Afghanistan.
3. Boko Haram
In this Oct. 13, 2016, photo released by the Nigeria State House, Chibok schoolgirls recently freed from Boko Haram captivity are seen during a meeting with Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in Abuja, Nigeria. (Sunday Aghaeze/Nigeria State House via AP, FILE)
Considering the millions of people displaced and the thousands killed by Boko Haram, it’s little wonder that the Global Terrorism Index ranked the African-based terrorist organization as #1 in 2015. While not its largest attack, perhaps Boko Haram’s most infamous moment came in 2014 when the group kidnapped 276 schoolgirls. Terrorizing Nigeria through murders, bombings, kidnappings, and rape, Boko Haram is the epitome of evil.
2. ISIS/ISIL
ISIS drowns suspected spies in a cage in Mosul. (YouTube screenshot)
Claiming authority over all Muslims worldwide, ISIS/ISIL began in the late ’90s, pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and has since grown to control large parts of Iraq and Syria, as well as operating inside Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, the Philippines, and a dozen other countries around the world. Infamous for their beheading videos, ISIS/ISIL follows a strict, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam and will not rest until they’ve either accomplished their goal of subjecting the world to their rule or have been totally destroyed. Let’s pray it’s the latter.
1. Planned Parenthood
Honoree former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at the Planned Parenthood 100th Anniversary Gala on Tuesday, May 2, 2017 in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
Last year, Planned Parenthood murdered 328,348 babies. The year before, they murdered 323,999 babies. The year before that, 327,653 babies were murdered by Planned Parenthood. In total, since 1970, Planned Parenthood has murdered almost 8 million babies. Preying on minorities, the poor, and immigrants, from its inception Planned Parenthood has been dedicated to a disgusting program of eugenics. No other terrorist organization in the world comes even close to touching Planned Parenthood in terms of the number of people murdered and terrorized.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member