Dylann Roof’s radicalization is like U.S. recruits to Islamic State, says AG

c. 2015 USA Today

The social forces that have assisted in the Islamic State’s radicalization of dozens of Americans are very similar to what drove Dylann Roof to embrace an extreme racist ideology before he allegedly launched an attack that left nine dead inside an iconic African American church, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.

In an interview June 25 as she returned from a trip to Birmingham, Alabama, Lynch said the themes of social disconnection and an attraction to radical thought expressed online are common in the recent stream of cases involving recruitment of U.S. citizens by the Islamic State and other homegrown violent extremists.