<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/17/us-neo-nazi-accused-of-sniper-plot-appears-to-have-shared-instructions-with-australian-far-right-figures>
"Brandon Russell, a US neo-Nazi who was charged this year with conspiring to
attack the Maryland power grid, appears to have shared instructions on how to
carry out such an attack months earlier in an Australian far-right channel on
Telegram.
Leaked chats show Russell posted extreme right propaganda and interacted with
known Australian neo-Nazis on the encrypted messaging platform last year.
Russell is the founder of Atomwaffen Division, which was proscribed by the
Australian government as a terrorist organisation last year.
The organisation, now known as the National Socialist Order, “advocates the use
of violence to initiate a ‘race war’ to accelerate the collapse of western
society and establish a ‘white ethno-state’,” the government’s listing said.
In 2018 Russell was convicted of possessing bomb-making materials and sentenced
to five years in jail. He was released in August 2021 but within months began
creating and sharing propaganda and tactics online. This began with a series of
“prison essays” published to a US fascist website in early December of that
year.
In February 27-year-old Russell and his then-girlfriend, Sarah Beth Clendaniel,
were charged with conspiracy to destroy an energy facility in Baltimore,
Maryland. Clendaniel said the pair wanted to use sniper attacks on five
electricity substations to “completely destroy this whole city”, it was alleged
in court documents. Russell and Clendaniel have pleaded not guilty to the
charge.
Allegations from the FBI in court documents supporting the criminal complaint
against Russell and Clendaniel refer to a user called Homunculus posting in
encrypted app chats in 2022, and identify him as Russell.
In separate leaked Telegram chats, seen by the
Guardian, someone with the
username Homunculus entered a chat associated with a channel called Australian
Meditations 51 on 6 May 2022 (51 refers to the number of people killed in the
2018 Christchurch terrorist attacks).
Members of the Australian Meditations channel include individuals on the
Australian far right. It is unclear whether Australian users of the channel
were aware who Homunculus was."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
