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Fascist US Army soldier faces terrorism-related charges

On Monday the US Department of Justice announced multiple charges, including conspiracy to murder US soldiers and attempted murder of US nationals, against 22-year-old US army private Ethan Melzer of Louisville, Kentucky. Melzer is alleged to have passed along sensitive troop information to a fascist organization in order to help orchestrate an insider attack against his Army unit while deployed in Turkey.

Melzer is alleged to have sent electronic messages to members of the occult neo-Nazi organization known as Order of the Nine Angels (O9A). The information included “location, movement and security” of an unnamed US army unit currently deployed to Turkey.

The indictment, which was unsealed on Monday, alleges that Melzer, who had joined the US army in 2018, had been in contact with the British-based extremist hate group since 2019. O9A, founded by neo-Nazi David Hyatt in the 1970s, believes that Adolf Hitler was “sent by the gods to guide us to greatness,” and that the “story of Jewish ‘holocaust’ is a lie to keep our race in chains.”

O9A literature was widely shared on the Iron March forum before it was shut down. This, however, has not stopped O9A books from being promoted and sold online by the Atomwaffen Division. As with Atomwaffen initiaties, O9A recruits are encouraged to infiltrate military and law enforcement organizations in order to gain valuable training to faclitate their fascist goals.

The indictment alleges that upon deploying with his unit to Italy in approximately October 2019, “Melzer consumed propaganda from multiple extremist groups, including O9A and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which is also known as ISIS.” As part of the investigation, FBI agents seized Melzer’s iCloud account which allegedly contained an “ISIS-issued document” titled “HARVEST OF THE SOLDIERS,” which detailed potential attacks against US personnel in approximately April 2020.

In April 2020, the Army informed Melzer that his deployment would be extended and that he would be deploying to Turkey to “guard an army installation.” It was at this point the indictment alleges that Melzer decided to “facilitate a deadly attack on his fellow service members.”

Beginning in May, Melzer began using the messaging service Telegram to communicate with members and associates of O9A and an auxiliary organization known as the “RapeWaffen Division.” Melzer passed along information to the groups detailing a planned “jihadi attack” with the objective of causing a “mass casualty” event. Melzer was indifferent to his own fate during the planned attack, allegedly telling the group, “who give a [expletive]... it would be another war ... I would’ve died successfully ... because another 10 year war in the Middle East would definitely leave a mark.”

On roughly May 17, 2020, federal prosecutors charge that Melzer also passed deployment information to “a purported member of al Qaeda” and a week later he sent additional messages with specific information regarding expected deployment location, where they would travel, along with technical and defensive capabilities.

Melzer is alleged to have sent more messages the following week where he acknowledged he was “risking [his] literal free life” to send the information for the attack which he hoped would trigger a “new war.” On May 30 Melzer is said to have admitted during a voluntary interview with military investigators and the FBI that he was plotting the attack and according to prosecutors he, “declared himself to be a traitor against the United States whose conduct was tantamount to treason.”

The indictment of Melzer exemplifies the growing spread of fascism within the US military and other militaries around the world. It was just last week that a fascist network was discovered within the elite German Army’s Special Forces commando unit Kommando Spezialkräfte—KSK.

The level of detail in the indictment also demonstrates that the US government is well aware of the growing fascistic elements within its ranks and is more than capable of tracking, surveilling and exposing such elements, if it so desired.

This was proven by the release of encrypted chat logs last weekend that had been recorded by the FBI and shared with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the BBC. The calls capture secret recordings of members of The Base, a small neo-Nazi organization primarily operating out of the US and Canada. The organization was founded by Rinaldo Nazzaro, a former FBI analyst and Pentagon contractor.

Nazzaro currently lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he helps coordinate The Base’s international activities, which include recruiting prospective members into the group for a future “race war” which will save “European values” from a “broken system run by Jews.”

In the recordings Nazzaro, along with senior leadership of The Base, are heard encouraging prospective recruits, mostly teenagers, to “mature ideologically” by reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf and to familiarize themselves with the group’s white supremacist ideology. The group also encouraged military training and has sought to recruit members of western militaries.

Another US fascist and member of The Base exposed in the chats is 25-year-old Matthew Baccari, from Southern California. Baccari used to run a website called Fascist Forge which he took down earlier this year. One of the forum members included a 16-year-old British teenager who became the youngest person in UK history to be convicted of planning a terrorist attack.

Three US members of The Base, Jacob Kaderli, Michael Helterbrand and Luke Austin Lane, were arrested in Georgia during a sting operation in January of this year for allegedly planning to “overthrow the government and murder a Bartow County couple” who they believed to be “Antifa members.”

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