Critics: White House conference didn't focus on domestic terrorist threats

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Critics said the recent White House summit on combating violent extremists didn't focus enough on the continuing threats from domestic terrorists and so-called sovereign citizens, which national security officials have said pose a greater danger on U.S. soil than Islamic extremists.

During the three-day Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, President Barack Obama called on American Muslim leaders to counter terrorism threats by dissuading young Muslims from the Islamic State militant group.

But critics said Obama should have placed some focus on countering domestic threats, including recent violent right-wing sovereign citizen extremists as well as hate crimes. A recently released Department of Homeland Security report found 24 violent sovereign citizen-related attacks in the U.S. since 2010, CNN reported.

"Yet, despite this complicated and growing landscape of domestic right-wing groups, the Obama Administration's Countering Violent Extremism programs continue to focus on the threat of radicalization in Muslim communities," human-rights activists Linda Sarsour and Deepa Iyer said in The Guardian. "One thing is clear: the federal government's one-note approach to countering violent extremism fosters distrust and hostility towards Muslim communities while disregarding threats to Americans' safety from racist hate groups in the country."

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, located at the University of Maryland, found between 1990 and 2013 there were 155 "ideologically motivated homicide events committed by far-right extremists in the United States. About 13 percent of these were anti-government in nature."

The group also said 50 state, federal and local law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty by far-right extremists from 1990 to 2013. Alleged attacks include a Las Vegas couple who killed two police officers in June and the 2013 shooting of three Transportation Security Administration employees at Los Angeles International Airport.

A study released Feb. 10 by the Southern Poverty Law Center -- a nonprofit that tracks hate crimes -- found domestic terrorism happens every 34 days. "There's no question that the jihadist threat is a tremendous one," Project Senior Writer Ryan Lenz wrote. "But that is not the only terrorist threat facing Americans today. A large number of independent studies have agreed that since the 9/11 mass murder, more people have been killed in America by non-Islamic domestic terrorists than jihadists."

The White House told CNN the administration is focused on all threats, including those from sovereign citizens and domestic terrorists.

"I don't think it's fair to say the (White House) conference didn't address this at all," an official told CNN, adding that President Barack Obama addressed the need to combat "violent ideologies" of all types.