A cleaning crew wearing protective clothing (PPE) to protect them from coronavirus prepares to enter the Life Care Center on March 12, 2020 in Kirkland, Washington. (AFP photo)
White supremacists discussed using the coronavirus as a bioweapon to target "nonwhite" neighborhoods, according to US federal law enforcement.
Using the encrypted messaging app Telegram, white supremacists discussed spending "as much time as possible in public places with their enemies" to transmit the virus, according to a weekly intelligence brief distributed by a federal law enforcement division on Feb. 17.
They also planned to target law enforcement by leaving "saliva on door handles" and elevator buttons at government offices.
"Violent extremists continue to make bioterrorism a popular topic among themselves," reads the intelligence brief written by the Federal Protective Service, which covered the week of Feb. 17-24. "White Racially Motivated Violent Extremists have recently commented on the coronavirus stating that it is an ‘OBLIGATION to spread it should any of them contract the virus."
Meanwhile, the FBI sent out an alert to local authorities on Thursday, warning that racist extremist groups, including neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, were encouraging infected members to spread the contagion to cops and Jews.
"Members of extremist groups are encouraging one another to spread the virus, if contracted, through bodily fluids and personal interactions," showed the alert obtained by ABC News.
In July last year, FBI director Christopher Wray said that white supremacist violence was to blame for a spike in US domestic terror arrests.
A violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 turned bloody after a 20-year-old suspected Nazi sympathizer smashed his car into the counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring some 20 others.
President Donald Trump, who has a strong following among white nationalists, called the far-right elements partaking in the demonstration as "very fine people."
However, after pressure against him piled up, he declared that "racism is evil," singling out white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan for the violent rally.
SOURCE: PRESS TV
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/14879
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