The Department of Homeland Security has issued a national terrorism alert warning that violent domestic extremists could attack in the coming weeks, encouraged by the January 6 uprising at the Capitol.
DHS said in a warning Wednesday that violent extremists opposed to the government and the presidential transition “could continue to mobilize to incite violence or commit violence.” The department said it has no evidence of a specific plot.
The DHS release was part of a public warning called a bulletin from the National Terrorism Advisory System.
The warning is the department’s first in about a year. The last such bulletin from DHS came in January 2020, warning of Iran’s potential to carry out cyber-attacks. Notably, DHS did not issue a warning ahead of its scheduled Jan. 6 meeting in Washington, DC, which culminated in a mafia siege at the Capitol, despite public chatter that extremists had planned on the Internet.
Wednesday’s warning detailed a range of factors in the recent past that have increased the potential for violence among American extremists.