An attack on an African-American church in South Carolina that has left nine dead is thought to be racially motivated.

The suspected gunman Dylann Roof has been pictured wearing white supremacist iconography and reportedly told his black victims: "I have to do it... You rape our women and you're taking over our country, and you have to go."

Here we look at who the white supremacists are in the United States and what defines them.

Like any sub-culture, they are far from a homogenous grouping but what defines them is hatred - usually directed at race and the government.

Weapons are a key part of their ideology: far-right websites dedicate entire sections to recommending what guns and other weapons to buy.

Nazi ideology is one symbol seen in nearly all far-right groups, with tattoos of swastikas common.

That Caucasian/Aryan people are from a superior gene pool, and that all other minorities are inferior. There is a particularly embittered hatred towards black people linking back to slavery, but also an increasing hatred towards Hispanics as that group has grown due to migration.

Unsurprisingly, given the long-standing affinity with Nazi ideology, Jews are also hated. A commonly held belief is that the US government is controlled by Jews, denoted by the acronym ZOG, which stands for Zionist Occupied Government.

Online extremist networks have erupted with news of the shooting. One thread on the major white-supremacist forum Stormfront had over 140,000 views. Users expressed a variety of opinions, but the majority used racist language and were insulting towards the dead. Pejorative and offensive racial terms were used, with some describing the gunman as a hero.

Others criticised the deaths of churchgoers and argued that the bad publicity would damage their cause. However, there was little regret for the actual loss of life.

There are also claims that the attack is a Jewish conspiracy designed to discredit white supremacist causes.

(BBC)