Word: groupings
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...Detroit courtroom on Monday morning. Among them was David Brian Stone Sr., 45, identified by the feds as the Hutaree leader. Wiry with close-cropped silver hair, he appeared in a green Wayne County, Mich., jail uniform. He barely uttered a word throughout the proceeding. The authorities said the group was apparently formed in August 2008, and was divided into separate units led by Stone and one of his sons, Joshua, 21, who remains at large. The proceeding also included the lone woman in the case so far, Tina Stone, 44, believed to be the Hutaree leader's current wife...
...while the name Hutaree may have a mysterious flavor, the plot its members were reportedly hatching was part of a familiar form of American paranoia. On Monday, federal authorities charged nine alleged Hutaree members with seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. The government believes the group - which apparently espouses an extreme form of fundamentalist Christianity - may have been plotting to kill law-enforcement officers to help spark a broader armed conflict. According to court documents, the Hutaree deemed police "foot soldiers" of the federal government - which in turn was part of the new world order...
...group's alleged plot appears to have required killing a cop at a traffic stop, or after a faked 911 call. Then, the group planned to attack the funeral of that officer - in order to wreak further havoc by killing even more government and law-enforcement officials who would have gathered to mourn. According to court documents, Hutaree members met in February in Lewanee County, Mich., a rural county of barely 100,000 about a 90-minute drive southwest of Detroit, to train for just such an April exercise. The Hutaree website has a message urging members to contact headquarters...
Still, the Hutaree are a symptom of the continuing militia phenomenon, one that seems to have gained impetus since the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the U.S. The Southern Poverty Law Center says that last year alone, the number of patriot and militia groups increased 244%, to 512. Though not necessarily racist, such groups fiercely oppose the federal government. In recent weeks, the health care debate seems to have fueled antigovernment sentiment that is far different from the last noticeable rise in extremist-group activity, after the 1992 election of Bill Clinton. "These shifts...
...impetus for the new peace effort may have come earlier this month, when a group of 70 Hezb-i-Islami fighters in the northern province of Baghlan found themselves on the losing end of a gunfight with the Taliban. Besieged, Hekmatyar's men opted to surrender to nearby government troops as a way to save themselves. That incident, however, underscores how abysmal Hekmatyar's relations are with the Taliban and casts doubt over his ability to deliver Taliban leaders to the negotiating table. No sooner was the new peace plan announced in Kabul than did the Taliban vigorously reject...