Former US soldier jailed for 45 years

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Former US soldier jailed for 45 years

NOTE: This article was published on 6 June 2023A former US soldier and member of a neo-nazi group has been jailed for 45 years for planning terrorist attacks. Ethan Phelan Melzer, also known as Etil Reggard, a 24-year old man from Kentucky, was sentenced in March for his part in a neo-nazi plot to murder US…

6 June 2023

Huw Davies

reports

NOTE: This article was published on 6 June 2023

A former US soldier and member of a neo-nazi group has been jailed for 45 years for planning terrorist attacks. Ethan Phelan Melzer, also known as Etil Reggard, a 24-year old man from Kentucky, was sentenced in March for his part in a neo-nazi plot to murder US soldiers. His goal was to spark another war in the Middle East.

Melzer is a former US Army soldier and member of the supernatural, Satanic, neo-nazi group, the Order of Nine Angles (O9A), which incorporates elements of extremist groups such as white supremacists, neo-nazis and Jihadists. O9A has expressed admiration for both Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden.

Satanic empire

O9A aims to dismantle existing societies and replace them with ‘new tribal societies’. They believe that society has been corrupted by Judeo-Christian beliefs and should be destroyed and substituted by a fascist system based on social Darwinism and Satanism, a ‘Satanic empire’.

In 2018, Melzer enlisted in the US Army and ‘infiltrated its ranks as part of an insight role to further his goals as an O9A adherent,’ according to US prosecutors.

As a member of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, he was deployed to Italy in 2019 where he became further radicalised. While there, he subscribed to encrypted online forums, downloaded videos of jihadist attacks on the US military and consumed neo-nazi, far-right and other white supremacist propaganda.

On learning that he would be reassigned to a unit scheduled for deployment that would be guarding a military base in Turkey and after attending briefings about the transfer, Melzer began passing on classified and sensitive information to O9A members on a Telegram channel known as ‘RapeWaffen Division’.

Mass casualty attack

Melzer’s goal was to try to provoke the USA into another foreign war, arguing that ‘another 10-year war in the Middle East would definitely leave a mark’. He set about preparing plans for a mass casualty attack on his platoon.

He shared with fellow members of the O9A the location of the military base, the number of soldiers who would be guarding it and how they would be armed.

In May 2020, a confidential FBI source, who was a member of a O9A chat group on Telegram, alerted the authorities to his actions, following which he was taken into custody.

Melzer eventually pleaded guilty to charges of ‘attempting to murder US service members, attempting to provide and providing material support to terrorists, and illegally transmitting national defense information, believing that it could be used to harm the United States’.

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