US soldier helped neo-Nazis plan 'mass casualty' attack on own unit in Turkey, feds say
Prosecutors say Ethan Phelan Melzer fed sensitive information about his unit to members of an occult white supremacist organization whose founder once pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda.
A US Army soldier has been charged with multiple felonies for allegedly helping other members of a neo-Nazi group plan a “mass casualty” attack on his own unit during an upcoming deployment to Turkey.
Prosecutors say 22-year-old Pvt. Ethan Phelan Melzer of Louisville, Kentucky, fed sensitive information about his unit’s “location, movement and security” to members of the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), an occult white supremacist organization whose founder once pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. Court documents released Monday allege Melzer joined O9A in 2019 after enlisting in the US Army the previous year.
While deployed in Italy in May, Melzer allegedly invited other members of O9A, including an FBI informant, to plan an attack on a US military installation in Turkey that Melzer’s unit would be guarding during an upcoming deployment.
The soldier and other alleged O9A members communicated via a secure messenger app group chat dubbed “RapeWaffen Divison,” an apparent reference to the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division network, which has been tied to a number of murders, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
