German Chancellor Angela Merkel of racism following the attack on two shisha lounges killing nine in the city of Hanau. The shooter has been reported to have far-right beliefs, with evidence including a video and a 24-page manifesto showing “a very deeply racist attitude.”
All nine victims, aged between 21 and 44, had a "migrant background," although some were German citizens, chief federal prosecutor Peter Frank said.
Incidents of far-right terrorism have been increasing in the West, particularly in Western Europe, North America and Oceania, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2019 which measures the impact and trends of terrorism worldwide.
The total number of incidents have increased by 320 per cent over the past five years.
In 2018, far-right terrorist attacks accounted for 17.2 percent of terrorist incidents in the West. By contrast, attacks by Islamist groups accounted for 6.8 per cent of attacks, and attacks not attributed to any group accounted for 62.8 per cent of incidents in the West.
Far-right terrorism still remains a tiny fraction of total terrorism worldwide. Between 2002 and 2018, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan accounted for 93 per cent of all deaths related to terrorism.
Far-right terrorism incidents in the west have spiked in the last five years. Source: Global Terrorism Index 2019
The following lists some of the more devastating mass-murders and terrorist attacks committed by far-right extremists in the West.
Historically, far-right terrorism still remains a tiny fraction of total terrorism worldwide Source: Global Terrorism Index 2019
The United States
As of October 2019, the placed the number killed in terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11 as: 111 killed in far-right attacks, 104 killed in jihadist terrorist attacks, eight killed in black separatist/nationalist/supremacist attacks, and eight killed in ideological misogyny/ideology attacks.
In August last year, an attack at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, targeting Hispanics and Mexicans killed 22 people and injured 26 others. Police believe the 21-year-old posted memes and a far-right manifesto on an online message board popular with white supremacy circles prior to the attack.
In April 2019, a 19-year-old nursing student opened fire into a synagogue in California during the last day of Jewish Passover. One woman was killed and three others injured. The shooter announced his plans on the same online messaging board.
Eleven people were killed and six injured in a synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in October 2018. The killer made anti-Semitic statements during the shooting.
In 2017, a member of a neo-Nazi group deliberately drove into a crowd of protesters at Charlottesville, killing one and injuring more than two dozen others. The crowd had been protesting at a Unite the Right Rally which began the night before.
Germany
In October 2019, a gunman targeted a synagogue and kebab stand in Halle, killing two people and injuring two others. The perpetrator streamed the attack on live-streaming platform Twitch for 35 minutes with antisemitic content.
United Kingdom
A man drove into a crowd leaving a mosque in north London in June 2017. He killed one person and injured nine others. The driver was found with publications associated with far-right ideologies.
New Zealand
Fifty-one people were killed and 49 others injured in New Zealand’s worst peacetime shooting when an Australian-born man attacked worshipers at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The gunman live-streamed the shooting on Facebook and published a manifesto before the attack.
Norway
In July 2011, a Norwegian right-wing extremist carried out the 2011 Norway attacks - the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II. First he bombed several government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people and injuring more than 200. After the bombings, he went to Utøya island in a fake police uniform and began firing on people attending a political youth camp, killing 77 people.
