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uicide bombings shook Sri Lanka on April 21, just over a month after white supremacy terrorist Brenton Tarrant opened fire on Muslims who were performing Friday prayers at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15.

The Sri Lankan government accused the local radical Islamic group National Thowheeth Jama’ath (National Tauhid Jamaah/NTJ) of perpetrating the bombings, but later Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the terror.

At first glance, the carnage in Sri Lanka and New Zealand appears to be simply violent acts of hatred between two parties. It turns out not to be that simple. The cruel and barbaric terrorist attack in New Zealand, which was then avenged by no-less-brutal acts of terror in Sri Lanka, has unfurled a new challenge to the discourse on global terrorism.

There had been a stereotype that acts of terror were associated only with radical Islam, but the Christchurch case demonstrated that terrorism is also connected with antimigrant and anti-Islam white supremacist/ultraright movements.

How serious is the threat of terror by the white supremacist/ultraright movement? According to the 2018 Global Terrorism Index, Measuring the Impact of Terrorism, between 2013 and 2017, 127 attacks were carried out by individuals and/or groups with white supremacy/ultraright ideologies and claimed 66 lives.

The data showed an increasing number of attacks and victims of ultraright terror. From 2013 to 2017, annual ultraright terror attacks rose from 9 to 10, 26, 23 and 59 respectively. The number of victims also increased from one person in 2013 to 11, 26, 11 and 17 respectively.

Terrorism observer Bjorn Ihler in his article “The Global Threat of White Terror” in Project Syndicate confirmed the trend of rising terror by the ultraright movement.

Interestingly, he mentioned that the number of terrorist acts by the ultraright movement in the United States far exceeded the number of terrorist acts by radical Muslims.

At this point, the question arises: how to interpret the phenomenon of the ultra-right terrorism? How should the international community deal with the phenomenon of white supremacist/ultraright terror in the context of the new landscape of global terrorism?

The guidelines for the international community on efforts to eradicate terrorism are summarized in the United Nations Global Counterterrorism Strategy (UNGCTS) that was agreed upon in 2006. The UN document, evaluated every two years, contains guidelines for counterterrorism efforts at the national, regional and global levels.

Even though they are not engaged in law enforcement, the guidelines provide direction for capacity building policies for member countries in counterterrorism.

There are interesting dynamics in the evaluation of the guideline document, namely changes in the list of perpetrators of terrorism. If in 2001 the threat of terrorism only referred to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and radical groups affiliated with them, the 2014 evaluation also referred to IS.

In 2015, foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) were added to the list of terrorist actors and in 2017 FTF returnees and relocators (foreign terrorists who returned to their countries and moved to other countries) were also added.

From the evaluation of the strategy of global counterterrorism at the UN, it is clear that there was a change in the list of global terrorist actors, but not in the perception of the threat of terrorism itself.

Terrorism, at least in the deliberations of UNGCTS and the UN Security Council, has only referred to acts of violence committed by radical Islamic groups.

Acts of violence by antimigrant and anti-Islamic white supremacist/ultraright groups were not even discussed in the two important UN forums above, let alone categorized as acts of terrorism.

The issue of acts of violence by the white supremacist/ultra-right groups is only discussed in the UN’s Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and human rights issues.

In other words, the acts of terror by the white supremacist/ultraright groups are “only” considered social and humanitarian issues, not an issue of global security threat.

There are nuances of injustice and imbalance here. The pattern of the development of white supremacist radicalism shares similarities with radical Islam: radical ideas spreading through social media followed by acts of terror carried out by global actors and supported by global funding.

What matters the most is the fact that both took the lives of innocent people. Therefore, it would be understandable if there was the view that acts of violence by white supremacist groups should be treated the same as those committed by radical Islam: both should be categorized as acts of global terrorism.

Terrorist acts in Sri Lanka and in New Zealand have posed a new challenge to the global fight against terrorism. Now it becomes clear that the two types of acts of violence are interrelated, at least by mutual hatred and revenge.

Now is the right time for the international community to begin discussing the two types of acts of violence in a fair and balanced manner, to acknowledge that both are acts of terrorism that not only destroy humanity but also, if not addressed early, threaten global security.

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The author is a diplomat serving in Vienna and postgraduate lecturer at the International Relations Department, School of Social Sciences, Padjadjaran University, Bandung.