Let's Talk About the Radicalization of Young White Males Online
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nytimes.com
F.B.I. Arrests Suspected Members of Neo-Nazi Group Before Virginia Gun Rally
By Adam Goldman
5-6 minutes
Politics|F.B.I. Arrests Suspected Members of Neo-Nazi Group Before Virginia Gun Rally
The three men had obtained guns and discussed traveling to Virginia for protests against new gun control measures, officials said.
A gun rights rally is scheduled for Monday at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. Gov. Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency and announced a temporary ban on weapons on the grounds of the Capitol.Credit...Steve Helber/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. has arrested three men suspected of being members of a neo-Nazi hate group, including a former reservist in the Canadian Army, who had weapons and discussed traveling to a pro-gun rally next week in Richmond, Va., in anticipation of a possible race war.
- Jan. 16, 2020Updated 12:43 p.m. ET
The men were taken into custody on Thursday morning as part of a long-running investigation into the group, known as The Base. The men were charged with various federal crimes in Maryland, according to the Justice Department. They were scheduled to appear in federal court before a judge on Thursday afternoon.
One of the men, Patrik Jordan Mathews, 27, a main recruiter for the group, entered the United States illegally from Canada, according to the officials. He was arrested along with Brian M. Lemley Jr., 33, and William G. Bilbrough IV, 19. Mr. Mathews was trained as a combat engineer and considered an expert in explosives. He was dismissed from the Canadian Army after his ties to white supremacists surfaced. Mr. Lemley previously served as a cavalry soldier in the United States Army.
The Base has become a growing concern for the F.B.I. as it has worked to recruit more people to its violent cause. The Base is an “accelerationist group that encourages the onset on anarchy,” according to the Counter Extremism Project, a group that tracks far-right extremists. Experts following the group say its founder, an American, appears to be living in Russia.
Patrik MathewsCredit...Royal Canadian Mounted Police, via Associated Press
Former law enforcement officials say The Base, along with another white supremacist group known as Atomwaffen, have become priorities for the F.B.I. Several members of the group have recently been arrested. In November, the F.B.I. arrested a young man in New Jersey, who was suspected of recruiting on behalf of The Base and of advocating violence, including the killing of black people with a machete.
On Wednesday, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia declared a state of emergency and announced a temporary ban on weapons on the grounds of the State Capitol ahead of the rally. Thousands of protesters are expected to converge in Richmond on Monday to protest proposed restrictions on gun purchases by the Virginia Legislature.
The governor said on Twitter that the authorities had identified credible “threats of violence,” including from out-of-state militia groups and hate groups that planned disruptions. He said the authorities had also found extremist rhetoric online similar to what had been seen in 2017 before the Charlottesville rally, when white nationalists and counterprotesters clashed in a deadly fight over the removal of Confederate monuments.
Protesters were expected to descend on the State Capitol on Monday, which is a federal holiday for Martin Luther King’s Birthday.
At a public event on Wednesday at George Washington University, Thomas E. Brzozowski, a top lawyer in the counterterrorism section of the Justice Department, said he was aware of the concerns surrounding the Richmond rally. That was an indication that the highest levels of the Justice Department were taking the situation in Richmond very seriously.
Mr. Lemley and Mr. Bilbrough were charged with transporting and harboring aliens and along with conspiracy. Prosecutors also charged Mr. Lemley and Mr. Mathews with transporting a firearm and ammunition with the intent of committing a felony. The complaint also charges Mr. Mathews with being an alien in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
The case shows how difficult it is for the F.B.I. and prosecutors to charge domestic terrorism suspects because First and Second Amendment concerns have limited the scope of what law enforcement can do. The current domestic terrorism statute does not carry any criminal penalties.
Investigators said that Mr. Mathews illegally crossed into the United States from Canada near the Minnesota border on Aug. 19, 2019. The authorities said that Mr. Lemley and Mr. Bilbrough picked up Mr. Mathews in Michigan. The men returned to Maryland later that same month.
Mr. Mathews is also believed to have traveled to Georgia, where he trained with other members of The Base.
According to the authorities, Mr. Lemley and Mr. Mathews rented an apartment in Delaware, where the F.B.I. ultimately arrested them. Prosecutors said the pair made a functioning assault rifle. They also bought more than 1,500 rounds of rifle ammunition, fired the rifle at a Maryland gun range and acquired vests to hold body armor.
The crazy part is this also overlaps the illegal immigration issue but Trumpanezes will just act like whatever to keep bashing brown Mexicans people and how their rights are being taken away.
Between this and the Saudi army shooter, it should wake people up to how access to guns are just too loose.
nytimes.com
A New Face of White Supremacy: Plots Expose Danger of the ‘Base’
By Neil MacFarquhar and Adam Goldman
11-14 minutes
A secret domestic terrorism investigation revealed that the violent neo-Nazi group was recruiting cells across the United States.
Members of the Base, a white supremacist group, talked about targeting attendees of Monday’s gun rally in Richmond,Va.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
- Published Jan. 22, 2020Updated Jan. 23, 2020, 7:13 a.m. ET
It was the blunt, bloody prescription for sparking a race war by a member of the Base, a white supremacist group that has come under intense scrutiny amid a series of stunning recent arrests.
Federal agents, who had secretly recorded those remarks in a bugged apartment during a domestic terrorism investigation, pounced on seven members of the group last week in advance of a rally on Monday by gun rights advocates in Richmond, Va. Three members of one cell in Maryland affiliated with the group plotted attacks at the rally, hoping to ignite wider violence that would lead to the creation of a white ethno-state, law enforcement officials said.
The “defendants did more than talk,” Robert K. Hur, the United States attorney for Maryland, said after a detention hearing on Wednesday in federal court in Greenbelt, Md. “They took steps to act and act violently on their racist views.”
The details that emerged in court and in documents from active cases in three other states — Georgia, Wisconsin and New Jersey — unveiled a disturbing new face of white supremacy.
The Base illustrates what law enforcement officials and extremism experts describe as an expanding threat, particularly from adherents who cluster in small cells organized under the auspices of a larger group that spreads violent ideology.
“We have a significant increase in racially motivated violent extremism in the United States and, I think, a growing increase in white nationalism and white supremacy extremist movements,” Jay Tabb, the head of national security for the F.B.I., said at an event in Washington last week.
Experts who have studied the Base say it seems to have followed the model of Al Qaeda and other violent Islamic groups in working to radicalize independent cells or even lone wolves who would be inspired to plot their own attacks.
They describe the Base as an “accelerationist” organization, seeking to speed the collapse of the country and give rise to a state of its own in the Pacific Northwest by killing minorities, particularly African-Americans and Jews.
Experts estimate that the Base, which was formed around July 2018, has dozens of hard-core members and tries to recruit many more online, although its approach is evolving.
Arrests to head off violence in Richmond and in Georgia exposed aspects of a long-running F.B.I. investigation, involving at least one undercover agent who infiltrated the group, as well as a hidden recording device and a video camera that were placed inside an apartment in Delaware where two of the men were arrested. The group’s toxic blend of ideology, dangerous rhetoric and embrace of violence has made it a top priority for the agency.
The case also reflected an aggressive approach that the F.B.I. can take when investigating an extremist group like the Base when there is a legal basis to do so.
Membership alone in a hate group is not a crime, but this case is a rare example of investigators treating a neo-Nazi group like the Mafia or a drug cartel, and allowing the F.B.I. to legally use a wide swath of investigative tools to target its members.
In other words, the F.B.I. suspected that the Base was operating as a criminal enterprise.
Image
From left, Luke Austin Lane, Jacob Kaderli and Michael Helterbrand were arrested in Georgia. Patrik J. Mathews, right, was arrested in Maryland. The authorities said all four were members of the Base.Credit...Floyd County Police, via Associated Press (left three images); Royal Canadian Mounted Police, via Associated Press (right image)
The men arrested in Maryland hoped that attacks in Richmond would spark a wider conflict.
“We can’t let Virginia go to waste, we just can’t,” Patrik J. Mathews, a member of the Base, and a combat engineer who was expelled from the Canadian Army Reserve, was recorded as saying about Monday’s rally in Richmond.
He and other members talked about killing police officers or participants who showed up outfitted with what they called “Gucci” gear: high-end weapons and body armor that they could steal.
Mr. Mathews, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and sporting a thick, reddish beard, sat impassively for most of the hearing in federal court on Wednesday. When Judge Timothy J. Sullivan read some of his more incendiary talk from the secret recordings about derailing trains, Mr. Mathews laughed.
The activity of Mr. Mathews and the others who were arrested reflected the changing thinking of the Base, which is placing more emphasis now on real-life gatherings and acts of violence, beyond just spreading propaganda online.
In recent years, the founder of the Base, who uses the names Norman Spear and Roman Wolf, both of which are pseudonyms, has stressed making the movement more kinetic offline.
He did not want to recruit “keyboard warriors,” he said in a podcast interview in September 2018, but rather dynamic members who were interested in developing military and survival skills.
“Encouraging members to be more active is kind of encouraging the creation of a base of potential,” he said.
Little is known about Mr. Spear, who calls himself a veteran of the conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq and has been described on some social media accounts as living in Russia. He encouraged cells to organize what he called “in-real-life” activity, consisting of anything from individual violent acts to training sessions. Even three members would be enough, he said, describing such a configuration as a “Trouble Trio.” Mr. Spear is said to offer prizes to participants, according to court documents.
One weekend gathering organized by several people who identified as members of the Base took place in Silver Creek, Ga., last August. It included firearms training, grappling, first aid lessons and a pagan ritual that included a goat sacrifice, according to court documents.
Image
Federal agents arrested several men last week to head off a potential attack during the rally in Richmond.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times
Each event was turned into a slick promotional video to be distributed online. The Southern Poverty Law Center, however, has noted that the same men appeared at different sessions around the country, suggesting that the size of the group was limited.
“When this training is filmed, edited and disseminated as propaganda, it serves as a force multiplier for the group and helps it recruit and fund-raise while also raising its profile,” said Colin P. Clarke, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, which studies terrorism globally. “If the Base can seem larger or more dangerous than it actually is, this is a boon for the group and one of its primary goals.”
The Base shares some ideological underpinnings and likely some members with Atomwaffen Division, another violent white-supremacist neo-Nazi group.
Both subscribe to the writings of James N. Mason, the author of “The Siege,” a kind of manual on establishing a white ethno-state.
Whereas members of Atomwaffen have been linked to about five murders around the United States, thus far members of the Base have been accused only of plotting violence, including murder, as well as illegally transporting weapons.
That does not make them less dangerous, experts said. Base members have expressed admiration for both the 2015 attack on an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., in which nine people were killed, and an armed assault on a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 in which 11 people died.
“The danger is very real; we live in a country where we have mass shootings on a regular basis, sometimes with no ideology,” Mr. Clarke said. “Now these are people who are committed, angry racists who could do the same thing at any time.”
Members of the Base posting in various chat rooms wrote messages encouraging violence, according to court documents. “Insurgency begins as a terrorist campaign,” one message said; another said that the current system of government “can’t be replaced peacefully.”
They also encouraged former members of the military to join. Mr. Mathews, 27, a former combat engineer in the Canadian Army Reserve, was expelled from the service last year after an undercover investigation in the Winnipeg Free Press exposed him as a recruiter for the Base and he fled across the border into the United States.
Brian M. Lemley Jr., 33, a former United States Army cavalry scout from Elkton, Md., was charged along with him. Among other things, the two men built a functioning assault rifle from a kit that they intended to use in Richmond, court documents said.
Mr. Spear has said repeatedly that the United States is doomed because of its large and growing minority population. He and other members of the Base have also criticized President Trump.
“Trump is a false prophet, Israel-first fraud,” Mr. Lemley was quoted as saying at one point, adding later, “The Holocaust is fake news.”
Aside from the plot to incite explosive violence at the Virginia rally, the court documents detailed the activities of all seven men arrested last week as well as one charged in New Jersey in November.
In Georgia, the three men arrested had, in the presence of an undercover agent, cased the house of a Bartow County couple they planned to shoot dead for being members of Antifa, which has staged counterdemonstrations at right-wing rallies across the country and revealed the identities of Base members publicly.
They also planned to kill Mr. Mathews, whom they had told about their murder plans.
The seventh man arrested was identified as Yousef O. Barasneh, 22, of Oak Creek, Wis., who was accused of vandalizing the synagogue of the Beth Israel Sinai Congregation in nearby Racine.
The exterior of the synagogue had been spray painted with swastikas and anti-Semitic words as well as the symbol of the Base, which is drawn from Nazi Germany.
Richard Tobin, a suspected member of the Base who was arrested in New Jersey in November, told investigators that, in late September 2019, he had directed what he called “Operation Kristallnacht,” named after the notorious night in 1938 when Jewish property across Germany was destroyed. The operation that Mr. Tobin described included vandalism at the Racine synagogue and another one in Hancock, Mich.
Although the Base initially used various social media platforms to spread its message, it has been thrown off most of them, including Twitter, YouTube and Gab, a favorite among extremists.
Now it relies on Telegram, an encrypted platform, experts said. After all the arrests, a note appeared on its official Telegram account warning people to stop posting.
“Due to recent developments and the tactics of law enforcement, there will be no more recruitment or posts from The Base or Atomwaffen in order to avoid a case brought against anyone in this group,” said the note, which was posted by someone using the name Fashwave. “This is for your own good.”
Correction: Jan. 23, 2020
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a Georgia county where three men cased a house of Antifa members. It is Bartow County, not Barstow County.
Neil MacFarquhar is a national correspondent. Previously, while Moscow bureau chief, he was part of a team awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, and he wrote two books about the Middle East based on his extended reporting from that region, including nearly five years as Cairo bureau chief. @NeilMacFarquhar
Adam Goldman reports on the F.B.I. from Washington and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. @adamgoldmanNYT
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 23, 2020, Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Core of Resolute Racists, Seeking Downfall of U.S.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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theguardian.com
Revealed: the true identity of the leader of an American neo-Nazi terror group
Jason Wilson
13-16 minutes
The Guardian has learned the true identity of the leader and founder of the US-based neo-Nazi terror network the Base, which was recently the target of raids by the FBI after an investigation into domestic terrorism uncovered their plans to start a race war.
Members of the group stand accused of federal hate crimes, murder plots and firearms offenses, and have harbored international fugitives in recent months.
The Base’s leader previously operated under the aliases “Norman Spear” and “Roman Wolf”. Members of the network do not know his true identity due to the group’s culture of internal secrecy.
But the Guardian can reveal that “Norman Spear” is in fact US-born Rinaldo Nazzaro, 46, who has a long history of advertising his services as an intelligence, military and security contractor. He has claimed, under his alias, to have served in Russia and Afghanistan.
The revelation of his identity comes after a months-long investigation by the Guardian into Nazzaro and the activities of the Base.
While Nazzaro’s most recently used address is in New Jersey, there is evidence supporting his claims of being based in Russia, where he lives with his Russian wife.
The Base – which is an approximate English translation of “al-Qaida” – began recruiting in late 2018. The white supremacy group, which has regional and international cells, extols the virtues of an all-out race war while specifically targeting African Americans and Jewish people.
Using encrypted apps, members of the highly organized group planned terror campaigns; vandalized synagogues; established armed training camps and recruited new members.
The US attorney for Maryland, Robert K Hur, speaking after the recent arrest of three members of the Base, said that they “did more than talk – they took steps to act and act violently on their racist views”.
Few traces of him exist anywhere
Rinaldo Nazzaro has maintained a decidedly low profile: he has no visible presence on any major social media platforms, no published writings under his own name, and no profile in local or national media.
Few traces of him exist anywhere, except where a name is required in official business – such as real estate purchases and the registration of companies.
Multiple emails and phone calls to Nazzaro went unanswered.
But through a painstaking investigation involving freedom of information requests, the analysis of material provided to the Guardian by a whistleblower inside the group, and cross-examination of information found online and in databases, the Guardian was able to piece together his identity and some of his whereabouts.
The Guardian was able to unravel Nazzaro’s identity due to his 2018 activities in a remote corner of the Pacific north-west.
In chat rooms hosted by the Base, Nazzaro stressed the importance of in-person meet-ups and required members to attend training camps. The Base’s propaganda videos show young men undergoing combat training together in rural areas.
Last August, an Oregon-based antifascist group, Eugene Antifa, warned that the Base was planning a “hate camp” in the neighboring state of Washington, and claimed Nazzaro (operating under the alias of “Spear”) had purchased land in Stevens county for training purposes. This warning came after a leak of the Base’s internal chats.
EUG161 (@161EUG)
The neo-Nazi group called "The Base" is planning a 'hate camp' this month in Washington. Members are flying in from around the country to Spokane, WA this August to participate in the gathering.#DeBasedDoxx
[THREAD] pic.twitter.com/L7M59zoaYn
August 5, 2019
Local media outlets picked up the story, which led local law enforcement to urgently seek information on the group.
In emails obtained by the Guardian via public records request, the Stevens county Sheriff, Brad Manke, is seen contacting the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for advice on the group.
On 20 August 2019, Manke writes to an FBI agent, asking: “Do you have a name for the actual head of the group The Base or the address where the property actually is?”
In a 20 September email responding to an SPLC researcher, Manke writes: “I have since learned that ‘The Base’ has purchased property in Ferry County, WA which is a neighboring county.”
Property record searches revealed that three 10-acre blocks of undeveloped land were purchased in December 2018 for $33,000 in the name of a Delaware LLC called “Base Global”. In a telephone conversation in late November, Manke confirmed that this was the block of land he had been referring to.
In recordings of two internal Base voice calls provided to the Guardian by the source, “Norman Spear” discusses his recent land purchase.
When asked why the land had been inexpensive, he replied: “Because there’s no possibility of getting utilities in there. Ever.” He continued: “But to me, that was a good thing for my purposes. I looked at it like it was just naturally secluded.”
In deeds of sale, the address provided for the company was a New Jersey post office – enough to conceal the purchaser’s identity. But separate tax affidavits associated with the purchase give a different address for Base Global.
That address is for a New Jersey apartment that has belonged to an older family member of Nazzaro since 1998. Nazzaro and his wife have also intermittently resided at that address, according to database searches.
The affidavits are also signed by Nazzaro, and dated “12/21/2018 Republic”. Republic is the seat and the only city in Ferry county, Washington.
According to a source inside the Base, this date coincided with a trip by Russia-based “Norman Spear” to the United States, during which time he had in-person meetings with members of the group.
Speculation that Nazzaro was a federal agent
The location of the land is consistent with “Norman Spear’s” advocacy of a white supremacist strategy called the Northwest Territorial Imperative (NTI), which was promoted by the deceased white supremacist Harold Covington.
The strategy argues for the creation of a separatist ethnostate in the Pacific north-west and encourages white supremacists to move to the region.
In one of “Norman Spear’s” first public appearances, on a far-right podcast recorded in December 2017, he was introduced as a Northwest Front (another white supremacist separatist group) organizer and went on to spell out a four-state plan culminating in “achieving independence, realizing the ultimate goal which is an independent nation state in the Pacific north-west, an ethnostate”.
The plan, he said, would trigger the relocation to the Pacific north-west of the white population in the United States.
Around the same time, “Spear” filmed a series of short instructional presentations on the tactics and strategy of guerrilla warfare. In an archive of those videos on the far-right site bytchute, he is identified as “Defense Studies expert and former CIA field intelligence officer Norman Spear”.
This detail, coupled with other leads, compelled many to speculate whether “Norman Spear” was, in fact, a federal agent operating inside the Base.
The Base has emerged at a time when far-right organizing is on the rise in the US. Last year saw a spate of terror attacks by white supremacists. In August, the gunman who killed 22 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, is believed to have posted a white nationalist manifesto online prior to the attack.
In April, an attacker who killed one person after opening fire inside a San Diego synagogue killing posted a note online citing white supremacy influences and naming the gunman who killed 51 in an attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, as an inspiration.
“We have a significant increase in racially motivated violent extremism in the United States and, I think, a growing increase in white nationalism and white supremacy extremist movements,” Jay Tabb, the head of national security for the FBI, said at an event in Washington recently.
Under the motto “there is no political solution”, the Base embraces an “accelerationist” ideology, which holds that acts of violence and terror are required in order to push liberal democracy towards collapse, preparing the way for white supremacists to seize power and institute an ethnostate.
Members remained defiant following the arrest of seven alleged members of the group in mid-January, calling it “an unjust political witch hunt” from the “Liberal Globalist System”.
Was the Base a honeypot designed to entrap people?
Beginning in 2009 and until as late as 2019, Nazzaro billed himself as an intelligence expert working with various government and military agencies.
Nazzaro is the principal of an LLC called Omega Solutions International (OSI), a company offering a range of intelligence and security contracting.
Its website, which was removed from the Internet some time after August 2019, boasted of the firm’s “experience conducting intelligence analysis for government agencies, military organizations, and private businesses”, as well as access to a network of seasoned security professionals with expertise in counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, homeland security, hostage rescue/negotiations, psychological operations, and more.
The firm also has a Cage Code, which is an administrative requirement for military and government contractors.
Materials inspected and sources consulted by the Guardian indicate that Nazzaro, as “Spear”, has faced persistent suspicions from current and former members of the group that he is a “fed”, or the agent of a foreign government, or that the Base is a “honeypot” intended to lure neo-Nazis out into the open for the benefit of law enforcement agencies.
Former members have cited this as a reason for leaving.
A connection with Russia
New York marriage records show that Nazzaro and his wife were married in New York City in 2012, during the period when Nazzaro is recorded as maintaining a midtown Manhattan address. At that time, he was recorded as having one child.
A Russian site that scrapes and archives social media accounts had captured a profile, and photos, posted by Nazzaro’s Russian-born wife to VK, the Russian social media site.
She has since hidden that profile, but other social media archives confirm the prior existence of an account in Nazzaro’s wife’s name (using her married name).
The photographs show the same person who has been presenting himself as “Norman Spear”.
Meanwhile, a reverse image search yielded a photograph matching public photos of “Norman Spear” atop advertisements for English lessons in St Petersburg, Russia.
The Guardian was only able to find one earlier photograph attached to his real name. It appeared above a vox pop in the Villanovan, the student paper of Catholic, Pennsylvania-based Villanova University, in 1994.
At the time of the photograph, “Ron Nazzaro” was described as a junior in philosophy, which is consistent with a 1973 birthdate. A source who has met “Spear” in person believes that the 1994 photo of Nazzaro is the same person he met.
A “Rinaldo Nazzaro” is also identified as a class of 1991 alumnus and donor of the prestigious New Jersey Catholic prep school the Delbarton School.
Nazzaro’s approximate age, his Italian heritage, his family’s New Jersey location, his background in “counter-intelligence”, the nationality of his spouse, and the number of his children were relayed to the Guardian as characteristics of “Norman Spear” by an internally placed source.
‘I am on the terrorism watchlist’
Richard Tobin, a Base member, is awaiting trial in New Jersey over allegations that he coordinated the September vandalism of synagogues in Michigan and Wisconsin. In a December custody hearing, the prosecuting assistant US attorney cited Tobin’s self-professed belief that “Norman Spear” was a Russian spy.
The Guardian has discovered that all of the business addresses associated with Nazzaro’s OSI LLCs are “virtual offices”. This describes a situation where a second company provides a business address, and sometimes meeting rooms and greeting services, for businesses who do not wish to maintain their own premises.
The addresses are often prestigious: OSI’s virtual address locations include Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and K Street in Washington DC, an address associated with federal government contracting and lobbying.
Meanwhile, “Norman Spear” appears to have had no extended history in the neo-Nazi movement before emerging as leader of the Base.
According to an internally placed source, the only people within the movement who vouched for “Spear” were connected to the Northwest Front (NWF). The NWF founder, Harold Covington, was himself the subject of persistent rumors within the white nationalist movement that he was a federal informant, and that NWF was itself a honeypot – a front organization routinely used by US law enforcement in order to entrap people.
“Norman Spear” has told Base members that he remains in Russia. Law enforcement sources have indicated on background that Nazzaro is believed by some agencies to be working for the Russian government.
The US government may have been monitoring “Norman Spear’s” activities for some time. In the April conversation planning a meetup in July, “Spear” was concerned that he would not be able to attend.
“I have confirmed that I am on the FBI terrorism watch list. I mean, that doesn’t really matter in the context of the training. What matters is that I’m on it.”
The Guardian’s investigation of the group continues.
bbc.com
US neo-Nazi directing group from Russia, BBC finds
By Daniel De Simone, Andrei Soshnikov & Ali Winston BBC News
6-7 minutes
Image caption Rinaldo Nazzaro is now living in Russia
The American founder of US-based militant neo-Nazi group The Base is directing the organisation from Russia, a BBC investigation has found.
Rinaldo Nazzaro, 46, who uses the aliases "Norman Spear" and "Roman Wolf", left New York for St Petersburg less than two years ago.
The Base is a major counter terrorism focus for the FBI.
Seven alleged members were charged this month with various offences, including conspiracy to commit murder.
Paramilitary training
Court documents prepared by the FBI describe The Base as a "racially motivated violent extremist group" that "seeks to accelerate the downfall of the United States government, incite a race war, and establish a white ethno-state".
Image caption Members of "The Base" posed for photos that were used as propaganda
The group - founded around July 2018 - gains followers online, communicates using encrypted messaging applications, and encourages members to engage in paramilitary training.
The leader's real identity had long been a mystery.
However, multiple images and videos of Nazzaro - taken over several years in both the USA and Russia - show the man known to be The Base founder, who goes by the two aliases.
He has previously used photographs of himself when promoting the group online
Last year Nazzaro was listed as a guest at a Russian government security exhibition in Moscow, which "focused on the demonstration of the results of state policy and achievements".
Living in Russia
A video posted online in March 2019 shows Nazzaro in Russia wearing a t-shirt bearing an image of President Vladimir Putin along with the words "Russia, absolute power".
We traced Nazzaro and his Russian wife to an upmarket property in central St Petersburg purchased in her name in July 2018 - the same month to which the FBI dates the creation of The Base.
Image copyright YouTube
Image caption Nazzaro was filmed in Russia wearing a T-shirt depicting President Vladimir Putin
Records show that, before moving to Russia, Nazzaro ran a company registered in New York that offered access to a "network of security professionals" with expertise in intelligence, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and psychological operations.
A website for the firm - Omega Solutions - once stated: "Our associates have worked with various government and military agencies, including multiple wartime deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan".
When we visited the company's one-time address it was little more than a mail drop, although the firm officially remains active and has a current insurance policy.
Property records show that an apartment associated with Nazzaro in New Jersey was given as the address for an entity called "Base Global" when it purchased land in the US state of Washington.
Guerrilla warfare
Nazzaro married a Russian woman in Manhattan in 2012. She had moved to the city from her homeland around four years earlier and her CV says she spent time working in a bank.
In 2018 - when he first began promoting The Base online using the "Norman Spear" pseudonym - they moved with their children to Russia.
Image copyright GAB
Image caption Nazzaro used the pseudonym "Norman Spear" to recruit on social media in 2018
In social media posts that year, "Norman Spear" posted imagery and videos by the outlawed British terrorist group National Action, praised al-Qaeda, and asked for volunteers possessing various skills, including with weapons, for his new organisation.
Audio recordings posted online capture "Spear" lecturing on subjects such as "guerrilla warfare". He is variously described as a military veteran, a former CIA field officer, and a defence studies expert.
"Norman Spear" was previously associated with an obscure movement that seeks a "white homeland" in the US Pacific Northwest, which includes the area where "Base Global" purchased land.
Following the nationwide FBI arrests of alleged Base members last week, an online channel used by the group to post propaganda carried a defiant statement from "Roman Wolf", saying "we will continue our struggle for survival undeterred".
The case against three alleged members states that the group leader instructed them to use coded language - or cyphers - when communicating, a tactic which the men are said to have employed.
The trio, accused of conspiring to murder an anti-fascist couple and their children, were allegedly counselled by the leader to carry out "non-attributable actions but that will still send a message".
A separate Guardian investigation has today also named Nazzaro as leader of The Base.
ajnapoleon
Veteran
He was the one crying
Smh
That's why I NEVER accepted a cac apology
The never ever mean it and when we do accept the apology they call us soft
White Supremacist Brandon Higgs Found Guilty In Hate Crime Shooting Of Black Man
A Maryland jury found Higgs guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter, first-degree assault and other crimes.
Christopher Mathias
TOWSON, Md. — A jury found white supremacist Brandon Higgs guilty Wednesday of first-degree assault, attempted voluntary manslaughter, hate crimes, and related firearms charges.
Higgs, a 25-year-old former Navy cryptologist with ties to neo-Nazi groups, was convicted of assaulting two black men, Elvis Smith and Robert Peete, during a 2018 altercation in Reisterstown, a suburb of Baltimore. Smith was shot in the leg.
The jury deliberated for about three hours Wednesday evening before delivering their verdicts. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 23.
Higgs shook his head in disbelief while being led out of the courtroom. Members of his family broke into loud sobs and shouted “I love you” as court officers escorted him away.
The verdict marks an end to a long ordeal for the two victims, both of whom were left traumatized by their encounter with Higgs. HuffPost exclusively interviewedSmith, 60, and Peete, 49, last year for a story examining hate in America.
On Dec. 20, 2018, Smith and Peete had been at work laying concrete on a driveway near Higgs’s house when a dog belonging to Higgs got loose and ran through the wet concrete. The three men exchanged some angry words before Higgs returned to his house.
He reemerged from the house a short time later carrying a loaded gun and accosted the two men with racist remarks, according to the prosecution. “******, this is my ’hood,” he allegedly said. ”Black motherfukkers, go back to Africa.”
He was accused of pushing Smith, who pushed him back. Smith then hit Higgs with what’s called a come-along, a rake used to smooth concrete. At some point, Higgs drew a gun and a tussle ensued, with Peete hopping into the melee to help Smith.
As they wrestled, Higgs’s gun fired once, sending a bullet tearing through Smith’s leg, shattering his tibia. Smith and Peete then beat, disarmed and restrained Higgs until police officers arrived.
Baltimore County Police Department
Brandon Troy Higgs.
“We know what this case was about,” John Magee, a prosecutor for the state’s attorney’s office, told the 12 jurors Wednesday inside the Circuit Court of Baltimore County. “Hate.”
Magee repeated the slurs Higgs had allegedly hurled at Smith and Peete: “******, this is my ’hood” and “Black motherfukkers, go back to Africa.”
Magee said it pained him to say such “awful” words out loud in court but that it was important for the jury to hear them.
Over and over again, Magee emphasized to jurors that Higgs, after the initial altercation with the dog, went home and remained there for 10 to 15 minutes.
“Nothing else should’ve happened, but it did, and it did because of Mr. Higgs,” Magee said. “Mr. Higgs comes back locked and loaded to finish what he started, with a round in the chamber and a spare magazine.”
“He’s looking for provocation. He’s looking to incite a violent response.”
Near the conclusion of his remarks, Magee pointed out Smith, who was sitting in the courtroom, a wooden cane clutched in his right hand.
“Now he’s permanently injured,” Magee told the jury. “He’ll never be the same. There’s a rod in his leg.”
We know what this case was about: hate. John Magee, prosecutor for the state’s attorney’s office
Higgs’s defense attorney, James Crawford, used his closing argument to tell jurors that Smith shared some blame for what happened.
“Smith was not correct in doing what he did with the come-along,” Crawford argued. “It’s called escalation.”
Higgs, he argued, was acting in self-defense when he drew his gun.
Most of Crawford’s closing argument emphasized that while Higgs may have made racist statements — at one point Crawford repeatedly called his own client “stupid” — there was not sufficient evidence to prove he had control of the gun when it fired.
The prosecution did not introduce evidence detailing Higgs’s deep connections to some of the white supremacist groups who helped organize the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
White supremacist chat logs leaked to Unicorn Riot, a media collective, showedHiggs expressing a murderous hatred of black people. In one post, Higgs hailed Dylann Roof — the white supremacist who murdered nine Black worshipers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 — as “St. Roof.”
“Brb hookjng [sic] up my ****** mulcher to the truck,” he wrote in one chat group for people planning Unite the Right.
“I decided I’m going to create my own group called Baltimore Animal Control and buy those dog patrol poles with the snare at the end and wrangle ******s with it,” he wrote in another chat group.
“Also want to leave bear traps in Baltimore city with buckets of KFC chicken.”
This is a developing story. Check back for more information.
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