The decentralized groups, which are present in at least 34 states, engage in physical training and post white nationalist propaganda, according to the Counter Extremism Project.

According to the advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), combat sport clubs have been used to boost recruitment to the Patriot Front, which was formed by Thomas Rousseau in September 2017 following the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and has been designated as a hate group by the SPLC.

"The Active Clubs were originally founded by American neo-Nazi activist Robert Rundo in response to the arrests of members of his former group 'Rise Above Movement'," explains Alexander Ritzmann, a specialist in these movements for the Counter Extremism Project.

The Active Clubs network has been notable for the speed with which it has grown and spread. Alexander Ritzmann, a researcher for the Counter Extremism Project and an adviser to the European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network, said he had “never seen a network in right-wing extremism grow so fast”.

Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden, and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and my own research.

“Intelligence agencies want to be aware of extremist networks that exist in their countries,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a terrorism analyst at the Counter Extremism Project, about active clubs, “their potential for current or future violence, and what links they may have to other movements and individuals, both domestically and internationally.” Already, there’s been evidence of that international coordination coming to light. “The neo-Nazi skinhead group the Hammerskins has had members in both the US and Canada, and more recently, the accelerationist groups the Atomwaffen Division and the Base have had members in both countries,” said Fisher-Birch, referring to two other groups that had transnational criminal networks.

Gun raids in Germany and films of people shooting with AR-15s in Sweden. The Active Club movement has taken steps towards becoming even more radical and violent. German researcher Alexander Ritzmann, from the Counter Extremism Project, warns that the movement may be on the verge of arming itself. It is not a martial arts club, but an emerging shadow militia, he says.

“If active clubs are allowed to continue to operate and multiply, the likelihood for targeted political violence and terrorism by their members against supposed enemies of the ‘white race’ (eg, Jews, people of color, Muslims and LGTBQI+ individuals) will increase,” Alexander Ritzmann, a senior researcher at the Counter Extremism Project who studies the movement, said.

“Active clubs are exploiting the assassination of Charlie Kirk for recruitment purposes, specifically urging white men to join the movement,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a professional analyst who researches the far right. “In online posts, active clubs have also stated that the current environment presents an opportunity to expand the movement, claiming that regular people are receptive to their ‘radical message’.”