The leader of The Base, Rinaldo Nazzaro, worked as a private military contractor for the Pentagon in 2014, which included briefing special forces. The leader of one of the most violent neo-Nazi terror groups in decades was paid by the Pentagon and worked with U.S. special forces on targeting and counterterrorism, according to new information. VICE News has learned that the leader of The Base, 47-year-old New Jersey native Rinaldo Nazzaro, was a Pentagon contractor who in 2014 worked with Special Operations Command (SOCOM), one of the most secretive elements of the U.S. military and the tip of the spear in the war against jihadist terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. A person familiar with the matter said Nazzaro, who had at least a top secret security clearance for a time, was among a group that briefed special forces officers on military targeting and counterterrorism efforts in the Middle East in 2014. (Previously, the BBC reported that Nazzaro was an FBI analyst and a Pentagon contractor.) This information matches up with details of his service that Nazzaro shared with other members of The Base in encrypted chats obtained by VICE News. “[I did] multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan over five years,” said Nazzaro in May 2019. Nazzaro said he “was a targeteer” and a “contractor,” and added that he was at Victory Base Complex, a cluster of military bases and operational buildings surrounding the Baghdad airport, and Camp Speicher in northern Iraq. “I did target packages as well,” he said, “[and] supported deliberate clearing ops.” An international terrorist leader who was once a specialist in combatting jihadist terrorism turning his expertise around and aiming it at the U.S. government speaks to the growing professionalization of the far right as it transforms into a dangerous national security threat on American soil. Nazzaro was the founder and leader of The Base, which authorities say intended to incite a “race war” through terror plots across the country. But a series of nationwide FBI raids in January, resulting in the arrest of seven of its members, narrowly thwarted chilling plots as wide ranging as an assassination, ghost-gun making, train derailments, and a mass shooting.
via vice: Neo-Nazi Terror Leader Said to Have Worked With U.S. Special Forces
siehe auch: The Base. The Base is a neo-Nazi, white-supremacist network that describes itself as an “international survivalist and self-defense network” that seeks to train their members for fighting a race war.* The network is active in North America, Europe, South Africa, and Australia. The Base is influenced by the race war called for in the book Siege by neo-Nazi James Mason. The Base is an accelerationist group that encourages the onset on anarchy so it can then “impose order from chaos.”* In a September 2018 episode of the podcast The Roper Report, Base founder Roman Wolf claimed The Base’s goal is to unite white nationalists for the coming race war that will overthrow the government and reshape society.* The Base has described itself as a “white protection league” and has organized training camps around North America for their members in weaponry and military tactics.* Wolf has called for members to focus on non-attributable actions that destabilize society. The Base has distributed to its members manuals for lone-wolf terror attacks, bomb-making, counter-surveillance, and guerilla warfare.* In November 2019, the FBI charged Base member Richard Tobin with orchestrating the vandalism of synagogues in Michigan and Wisconsin that September. Tobin told investigators that he envisioned a nationwide campaign, which he called Operation Kristallnacht after the 1938 night of pogroms against Jewish businesses in Germany that marked the beginning of the Holocaust.*
The name The Base is the English translation of al-Qaeda, though it is unclear if the link was intentional as the two networks share no other similarities. The Base heavily draws inspiration from the Atomwaffen Division (AWD) and Siege, the neo-Nazi manifesto written by James Mason that inspired Atomwaffen Division. The exact relationship between AWD and The Base remains unclear beyond inspiration.* The Base’s membership reportedly includes members of AWD and the far-right group Eco-Fascist Order.* Since the public revelation of the identities of The Base’s leadership and several high-profile arrests in January 2020, some U.S. media have claimed U.S. authorities dismantled The Base.* Also in January 2020, federal authorities arrested three men suspected of membership in The Base who were allegedly plotting to murder a couple, supposedly affiliated with the far-left antifa movement, in Bartow County, Georgia.* That same month, three suspected Base members were arrested for allegedly stockpiling weapons and training for an assault on a pro-Second Amendment rally in Virginia, reportedly in the hopes of sparking a civil war.* Despite these arrests and the revelation of The Base’s leadership, the group’s strategy of creating small, independent cells means it will likely adapt and continue.