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© Reuters/Dave Kaup
A police officer guards the entrance to the scene of a shooting at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City in Overland Park, Kansas.
The United States is reviving a law enforcement group to investigate those it designates as domestic terrorists, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Following hate-motivated shootings such as the one at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City, Missouri in April, federal prosecutors have pressed the need to coordinate intelligence about such criminals on a national level, Justice Department officials told Reuters.

In a statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said the United States remains concerned about threats from Islamic extremist groups, but the group will focus on other motives for attacks within U.S. borders.

Events like the April 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, in which the attackers appeared to be influenced by extremist groups abroad, would not fall under the committee's jurisdiction.

"We must also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice," Holder said in announcing the group, named the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee.

The committee's members will come from the FBI, the National Security Division of the Justice Department and the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of federal prosecutors.

Former Attorney General Janet Reno first established such a task force following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, but it stopped meeting after the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacked-plane attacks as the agencies turned their attention toward threats from abroad.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards and Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Grant McCool and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: Reuters