Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

428 • MILITIA MOVEMENTconviction of its members for plotting to bomb liquefied natural-gasstorage tanks in Sacramento in 1999. The 77th Regiment Militia ofFlorida was disbanded following the conviction in 2000 of its leaderto bomb the Clearwater nuclear plant in Tampa. The Arizona ViperMilitia was also disbanded as a result of investigations of its bombingplot in 1996.Although most of these groups ceased to exist as a result ofcriminal investigations and prosecutions of their members, someof them, including the Arizona Patriots, the Republic of Texas, andthe Mountaineer Militia, continue to exist and have shown signs ofreorganization and increased recruitment. Many militia groups thathave eschewed radical violence, such as the Militia of Michigan,responded to increased public scrutiny following the Oklahoma Citybombing by expelling their more radical members.Certain militia groups and related groups that have engaged interrorism are related in more detail elsewhere in this work: TheAryan Resistance Army sought from 1985 to 1995 to emulate theformer Order, while the Phineas Priesthood engaged in attacks onhomosexuals, biracial couples, and abortion clinics from 1991 to1996. The Viper Militia in 1994–1996 plotted to bomb federal andstate government buildings in Arizona. The Freemen of Montanain 1995–1996 and the so-called Republic of Texas in 1995–1997engaged in “paper terrorism” involving fraudulent liens and legalharassment, as well as actual violence against their neighbors andlocal communities.Since 2000 the midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,Michigan, and Ohio appear to have the highest levels of militia activism,mainly in the forms of recruitment, organizing gun sportingevents, circulating newsletters, and creation of Internet websites. Followingthe World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September11, 2001, several of these groups, such as the Republic of Texas,the Kentucky State Militia, and the Missouri 51st Militia, have heldtheir own “emergency preparedness drills” and have offered theircooperation to state and federal disaster relief agencies, which havegenerally declined such offers. Due to public preoccupation with thethreat of terrorism from Islamic fundamentalist groups such as alQa’eda following the September 11 attacks, militia groups have receivedless attention in the U.S. mass media. Also, given rising publicconcerns about the ability of terrorist groups to infiltrate through the