New York: The landmark election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president has provoked a surge in hate crimes against ethnic minorities and blacks in the United States, civil rights groups have said.

White extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, is emerging from decades of obscurity, with hundreds of hate-related incidents reported since the election of Obama to the White House.

Though the FBI is still in the process of compiling hate-crime statistics for 2008, those based on local media reports have forced experts to describe the surge as unprecedented. Some officials compared it to the rise in attacks on Muslims after the 9/11 attacks. "The rhetoric right now is just about out of control," said Brian Levin, director of Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State university, San Bernardino.

"When you get this depth of hatred, it usually is the smoke before the fire," he was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times newspaper. The FBI is investigating whether the recent Klan-related incidents involve conspiracies. And the Secret Service is monitoring the racist activity "to try to stay ahead of any emerging threats (to Obama)," according to spokesman Darrin Blackford.

Noose hangings, racist graffiti and death threats have struck dozens of towns across the United States. More than 200 such incidents -- including cross burnings, assassination betting pools and effigies of Obama -- have been reported, according to law enforcement authorities and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

"We've seen everything from cross burnings on lawns of interracial couples to effigies of Obama hanging from nooses to unpleasant exchanges in schoolyards," said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Alabama.

Source : PTI