The US Department of Homeland Security logo is seen outside its building in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. (ALASTAIR PIKE / AFP)

WASHINGTON - White supremacist extremists will present the gravest terror threat to the United States through 2021, according to a draft document from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The document is the first of the three draft versions released by Brookings senior fellow Benjamin Wittes of the "State of the Homeland Threat Assessment 2020".

It was stated in all the three drafts that white supremacist extremists are the deadliest threat and the threat posed by them was listed above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups

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In the other two versions, the threat from white supremacists was described with slightly different wording. But it was stated in all the three drafts that white supremacist extremists are the deadliest threat and the threat posed by them was listed above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups.

Although foreign terrorist groups will continue to call for attacks on the United States, they "probably will remain constrained in their ability to direct such plots over the next year," according to the draft documents.

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Wittes posted all the three versions on Twitter earlier this month, saying: "I made this material public because I wanted there to be a benchmark about what the career folks at DHS actually assessed the threats to be against which we can measure whatever the administration actually chooses to release."

The annual threat assessment has not yet been published by the DHS.