Trump’s counterterrorism strategy puts focus on left-wing ‘violent secular groups’

The Trump administration’s long-awaited counterterrorism strategy will put the focus on left-wing “violent secular” groups that officials argue are responsible for most of the politically motivated assassinations and other violence in recent years. 

The administration’s National Counterterrorism Strategy, released on Wednesday, will prioritize the “rapid” identification and neutralization of “violent secular” political groups, whose ideology is “anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist,” Sebastian Gorka, the senior counterterrorism director at the National Security Council who spearheaded the framework, said during a call with reporters Wednesday. 

“We will not permit politically motivated violence in the United States from either side of the aisle. But the sad truth is, the left has far more politically motivated assassinations, or attempted assassinations to its credit, in recent years, not the right,” Gorka said on Wednesday.

In late September, President Trump signed an executive order designating the far-left activist movement antifa as a terrorist organization.

“We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home,........

© The Hill