A Milestone For US Recognition Of Foreign Terrorist Groups

The world is a deeply unhinged place.

Extremist groups on the right and left are winning elections. Wars are raging around the world including Russia-Ukraine and Iranian proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis against Israel. And new terrorist groups continue to emerge like the Palestinian’s Tulkarm Brigades and Lion’s Den.

Yet one would not know this from tracking how the United States designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).

Since the U.S. State Department began listing FTOs on October 8, 1997, every Democratic and Republican administration was on top of the global terrorist threats, adding new FTOs with regularity. The longest gap between designating a new FTO was 992 days, from June 17, 2005 to March 5, 2008.

Until now.

The Biden administration last added a terrorist group on December 1, 2021, 1,005 days ago when it added two Colombia-based terrorist groups. Since that time it delisted five groups.

*U.S. State Department Foreign Terrorist Organizations*

Why hasn’t the U.S. listed any of the groups which have been murdering civilians for over 1,000 days? Has ignoring the “evil ideology” (to quote Obama) or “tragic deformity” (to quote James Zogby) of Palestinian culture pacified them?

The U.S. has spent the last three years with its head in the sand pretending that terrorist groups only exist INSIDE America as it left open its borders and ignored the toxic mushrooming of jihadi terrorist groups.