Anonymous threatens to expose identities of 1,000 Ku Klux Klan members

The hacktivist group has been involved in a stand-off with the KKK since the aftermath of the 2014 shooting death of Ferguson teenager Michael Brown

The group Anonymous has threatened to reveal the identities of 1,000 KKK members (AP)

The activist group Anonymous has threatened to launch a campaign against the Ku Klu Klan and reveal the identifies of up 1,000 members of the white supremacist group.

In a press release titled "Operation KKK Hoodsoff", the group labelled members of the KKK as terrorists and added: “You’ve had blood on your hands for nearly 200 years”.

It comes after a year-long conflict between the two groups which began during the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, when members of the KKK allegedly threatened to attack protesters following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, according to NBC.

A KKK rally at Stone Mountain in the 1940s (AP)

In the press release, Anonymous said: "Ku Klux Klan, we never stopped watching you. We know who you are.”

It added: “You are abhorrent. Criminal. You are more than extremists. You are more than a hate group.

"You operate much more like terrorists and you should be recognised as such. You are terrorists that hide your identities beneath sheets and infiltrate society on every level.

"The privacy of the Ku Klux Klan no longer exists in cyberspace. You've had blood on your hands for nearly 200 years.”

In November last year, Anonymous took over a KKK-linked Twitter account and exposed social media accounts it claimed belonged to KKK members.

(Getty Images)

That took place ahead of a grand jury decision on whether to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Mr Brown.

Today, there is no singular group known as the Ku Klux Klan, but rather a series of splinter groups that bear the names the Bayou Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Imperial Klans of America and the Knights of the White Camelia.

Interest and focus on white supremacist groups has increased since this this summer after the shooting of nine black church members in South Carolina. After the arrest of suspect Dylann Roof, who has been charged with nine counts of murder, a large trove of photographs was found online of the young man posing at Confederate war sites and former slave plantations.

Also discovered was a racist “manifesto” which described why he had decided to launch the attack. It said he had been inspired by a number of white supremacist groups, including the Council of Conservative Citizens (CoCC).

Mr Roof said he read on the CCoC website of the case of Trayvoon, the unarmed black teenager who was shot and killed by former neighborhood watch man George Zimmerman. Mr Zimmerman was later cleared of a murder charge.

“It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right,” he wrote.

In their press release, Anonymous said the KKK continued to “inflict civil rights violations, commit violent crimes and solicit others to commit violent criminal acts”.

It added: “We will release, to the global public, the identities of up to 1,000 klan members, Ghoul Squad affiliates and other close associates of various fractions of the Ku Klux Klan across the United States.”