# Identifying Terrorist and Violent Extremist Actors

The Christchurch Call Foundation encourages an approach to identifying terrorism and violent extremism that combines actor, content, and behaviour signals. Actor-level signals alone are often insufficient because of the constantly evolving threat landscape, the challenges of identifying emerging terrorist and violent extremist groups, and the possible politicization of designations.

However, we recognize that teams with limited expertise in terrorism and violent extremism may find it helpful to refer to existing lists of terrorist and violent extremist actors when implementing this policy. In policy testing, we identified that the model will occasionally return a false negative due to a failure to recognize certain emerging terrorist and violent extremist groups. To solve this challenge, we recommend that teams implementing open-source reasoning models like gpt-oss-safeguard work directly with expert researchers and practitioners to support more accurate assessments of actor, content, and behaviour signals for this sensitive harm area.

In addition to recommending dedicated engagement with subject matter experts to augment model capabilities, we offer the following resources to help teams navigate the landscape of terrorism and violent extremism.

## Lists of Designated or Proscribed Terrorist Individuals and Organizations

Designated and proscribed status differs across countries and there is no universally accepted list of terrorist and violent extremist organizations. As a starting point, teams looking for reference lists of terrorist and violent extremist organizations could refer to the following designations made by the United Nations, the European Union, and Five Eyes countries:

- [UN Security Council: Consolidated List](https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/un-sc-consolidated-list)
- [European Union: Terrorist List](http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2026/455/oj)
- [Public Safety Canada: Currently Listed Entities](https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-en.aspx)
- [United Kingdom Home Office: List of Proscribed Terrorist Groups or Organizations](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version)
- [Australian National Security: Listed Terrorist Organizations](https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/what-australia-is-doing/terrorist-organisations/listed-terrorist-organisations)
- [New Zealand Police: Designated Terrorist Entities](https://www.police.govt.nz/advice/personal-community/counterterrorism/designated-entities)
- [United States Department of States: Foreign Terrorist Organizations](https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations)

Importantly, these lists should not be used as an exclusive indication of terrorism or violent extremism, but rather as one signal interpreted among many. Terrorist and violent extremist activity is not always organized under the umbrella of an official organization. Moreover, many of these lists do not capture increasingly hybridized threats, particularly those related to nihilistic violent extremism (NVE). We strongly encourage teams using this policy to use these resources only as additional context, rather than a single source of truth. 

## Specific Incidents and Perpetrators

One of the important limitations of using the designation lists above is that they do not capture individuals who have acted alone to commit terrorist or violent extremist attacks. Increasingly, we observe that violent extremist communities online glorify individual perpetrators including by sharing their manifestos, discussing their tactics, and copying their aesthetics. Maintaining a singular list of relevant perpetrators is challenging because of inconsistency in the application of terrorism or violent extremism charges across jurisdications and uncertainty about the motivations of lone actors.

The Christchurch Call Foundation maintains a list of perpetrators and incidents where: 
- we engaged our Crisis Response Protocol and/or
- the attack involved references to the Christchurch terrorist.

The names of perpetrators associated with incidents are provided below for reference when implementing and interpreting this policy.  Importantly, these lists only consider recent incidents (since the founding of the Christchurch Call in 2019) and are not a comprehensive list of terrorist and violent extremist incidents. In addition, we note that not all perpetrators on this list have been subject to terrorism or violent extremism charges or investigations. We offer this list as context for understanding perpetrators and incidents for which there may be serious risk of glorification online.

| Date | Location of Incident | Incident | Perpetrator |
|------|---------------------|----------|-------------|
| 15/03/2019 | New Zealand | Christchurch terrorist attacks | Brenton Tarrant |
| 27/04/2019 | USA | Chabad of Poway Synagogue attack | John Timothy Earnest |
| 3/08/2019 | USA | Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas | Patrick Crusius |
| 10/08/2019 | Norway | Al-Noor Islamic Centre attack in Baerum | Philip Manshaus |
| 9/10/2019 | Germany | Halle Synagogue attack | Stephan Balliet |
| 9/02/2020 | Germany | Shisha bar shootings in Hanau | Tobias R. |
| 20/05/2020 | USA | Mall shooting in Glendale, Arizona | Armando Hernandez |
| 16/10/2020 | France | Murder of a French school teacher | Abdoullakh Anzorov |
| 6/06/2021 | Canada | Vehicle ramming attack in London, Ontario | Nathan Veltman |
| 19/08/2021 | Sweden | School stabbing in Eslöv | Hugo Jackson |
| 14/05/2022 | USA | Supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York | Payton Gendron |
| 12/10/2022 | Slovakia | Shooting at Tepláreň Bar in Bratislava | Juraj Krajčík |
| 6/05/2023 | USA | Mall shooting in Allen, Texas | Mauricio Garcia |
| 26/08/2023 | USA | Dollar General Store shooting in Jacksonville, Florida | Ryan Palmeter |
| 13/10/2023 | France | School stabbing attack in Arras | Mohammed Mogouchkov |
| 1/01/2024 | USA | Vehicle ramming attack in New Orleans, Louisiana | Shamsud Din Bahar Jabbar |
| 12/08/2024 | Turkey | Tea stall knife attack near mosque | Arda Küçükyetim |
| 16/12/2024 | USA | Abundant Life Christian School shooting | Natalie Lyn (Samantha) Rupnow |
| 20/12/2024 | Germany | Vehicle ramming attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg | Taweb Jawab al-Abdelmosen |
| 23/01/2025 | USA | Antioch High School shooting | Solomon Henderson |
| 24/04/2025 | France | School stabbing in Nantes | Justin Polat |
| 17/05/2025 | USA | Car bomb outside fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California | Guy Edward Bartkus |
| 21/05/2025 | USA | Shooting outside Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC | Elias Rodriguez |
| 27/08/2025 | USA | Annunicion Catholic School shooting | Robin (nee Robert) Westman |
| 10/09/2025 | USA | Evergreen High School shooting | Desmond Holly |
| 2/10/2025 | United Kingdom | Heaton Park Synagogue attack in Manchester | Jihad Al-Shamie |
| 14/12/2025 | Australia | Bondi Beach attack | Saijd Akram and Naveed Akram |
| 16/12/2025 | Russia | Stabbing attack at Uspenskaya school | Timofey K. |
| 10/02/2026 | Canada | Tumbler Ridge Secondary School shooting | Jesse Van Rootselaar |
| 24/03/2026 | United Kingdom | Arson attack in Golders Green | Harak Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia |
| 25/03/2026 | Italy | Stabbing attack at school in Trescore Balneario | Abanoud Youssef |