US Soldier Planned Attack on Comrades, Gave Info to Neo-Nazi Group: Prosecutors
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A US Army soldier is facing a slew of terrorism charges after giving classified military information to a white supremacist group with Satanic leanings as part of a deadly plot against members of his own unit, prosecutors said.
The charges announced Monday in Manhattan Federal Court allege that Army Private Ethan Melzer gave information about US troops stationed overseas — including whereabouts, movement and security details — to the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A). The intel supplied by Melzer was to be used as a way to carry out a "mass casualty" incident, according to the criminal complaint and indictment, NBC New York reported.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has described O9A as an "occult neo-Nazi" organization, and British lawmakers have called for the group, which was founded there, to be banned. Prosecutors called the group a "neo-Nazi and racially motivated violent extremist group," which has praised some of history's most notorious figures such as Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden. Members and associates of the group have carried out acts of violence and murders in the past, prosecutors said.
The UK group Hope Not Hate, in its annual State of Hate report, cited O9A as a major influence on Nazi terror groups both in the United States and Europe.
Melzer, joined the hate group in 2019, the year after he joined the Army. Before he began plotting the attack, the Louisville, Kentucky, resident had been reading and gathering propaganda from a variety of extremist groups like O9A and Daesh (ISIL or ISIS), the criminal complaint and indictment read.
In a statement, Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss called Melzer "the enemy within" for his plan to take out as many of his fellow soldiers as possible.
Melzer was charged with multiple counts of conspiring and attempting to murder US nationals and military service members, providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists, and conspiring to murder and maim in a foreign country. Half of the charges carry a life sentence, if Melzer is convicted; others include as much as 15-20 years in prison. Attorney information for Melzer was not immediately made available.
