The Black Panthers had approximately 2,000 members in 1970, spread out throughout the United States.  However, due to efforts by law enforcement and internal Black Panther rivalries, the group's leadership had either been captured or killed, or was in hiding or had fled the United States entirely by the early 1970s.  By 1972, the Black Panthers was no longer operational.  Some former Black Panthers members then joined the terrorist organization, Black Liberation Army.  The New Black Panthers, formed in the 1990s, is not associated with the Black Panther Party of the 1960s-1970s.

Funded by al-Fatah and through extortion

The Black Panthers in their original form do not appear to be an active terrorist entity.  Although a group exists using their moniker, the threat from the current iteration of the Black Panthers appears to be relatively low.  However, the group is active and could be responsible for terrorist violence in the future.

The Black Revolutionary Assault Team conducted only three terrorist attacks in its brief history.  Although it never publicly elucidated its full ideology, statements made in their claims of responsibility shed light on the group's political orientation, which appears to be leftist or Marxist.<br /><p> <br />Their attack on the South African consulate was made as a protest against South Africa's apartheid regime.  In their attack on the Zairean mission to the United Nations, they claim to oppose Zaire's refusal to allow "our freedom fighters" access to Angola.  Angola, at the time, was in the midst of a struggle between various anti-colonial liberation movements and the Portuguese colonial regime, as well as fighting among the liberation movements.  Zaire supported the FNLA, while the Soviet Union and Zaire's Marxist neighbor Congo-Brazzaville supported the MPLA.  Zaire's leader was Joseph Mobutu, a strongly pro-West and anti-Communist figure who denied MPLA rebels transit rights to travel to Angola from their bases in Congo-Brazzaville.  It is unknown whether any true links existed between the MPLA and the Black Revolutionary Assault Team.  The group's attack on Malawi's U.N. mission remains a mystery.<br />