Interesting on a few levels..that the HQ for this org. in in Russia-tops my list---the intelligence of their strategy strikes me as well. Get your troops already trained is smart. Ironically..this is also the same method many gangs in the US use...although they usually send their youth to enlist already knowing what they were going for.
It would be quite easy to slip in some Govt. Operators--which govt.? Leave that one for you to decide...LOL!
Secret recordings of a militant neo-Nazi organization called The Base reveal that the group is recruiting people with military expertise in the U.S. and Canada to train in military operations and prepare to take advantage of what they believe is impending societal collapse.
The audio recordings are from calls between the leader of The Base and more than 100 prospective recruits using the encrypted app Wire.
Twenty percent of the prospective recruits who were recorded said they were active-duty military or had served in the military in some capacity, said documentary filmmaker Jamila Paksima, a co-host of the podcast. NBC News has listened to a significant part of the audio but could not independently verify their identities or their claims.
The leader of The Base, Rinaldo Nazzaro, who was born in the U.S., runs his operation out of his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia, which he discusses in the recordings.
Mollie Saltskog, senior intelligence analyst at The Soufan Group, an international security consultancy, said: "Extremely lethal and dangerous operations that believe in an impending race war like The Base or Atomwaffen make a concerted effort to recruit people with military experience. Having these types of people in these types of organizations increases their operational capabilities to commit acts of terrorism."
Saltskog said reports that Nazzaro is based in Russia "raise flags about the potential for foreign influence on these white supremacist organizations operating on American soil."
Nazzaro formerly was known only by his online aliases, Norman Spear and Roman Wolf, until The Guardian revealed his identity in January.
The Guardian and the BBC used photos and property records to show the links between Nazzaro and the Spear alias. The Guardian, for example, found tax affidavits signed by Nazzaro for a property in Washington state linked to Spear and owned by a company called Base Global. It also matched images of Spear with photos of Nazzaro posted on social media by his wife. The BBC, meanwhile, traced Nazzaro and his Russian-born wife to a St. Petersburg apartment that was purchased in her name. NBC News has not reviewed those records.
"We are survivalism, a self-defense network," Nazzaro said in one of the recordings. "Our mission's very, very simple. It is training and networking, preparing for collapse. We want to be in a position where we're ready, we're prepared enough, ready enough that we can take advantage of whatever chaos, power vacuum, that might emerge. We want to try and fill that power vacuum and take advantage of the chaos."
The Justice Department calls The Base a "violent extremist group." Members of The Base in the U.S. have been arrested on charges of possession of weapons, vandalism and conspiracy to commit murder.
"They hate Jews and African Americans. Their goal is to use terrorism to start a race war and collapse the United States. Triggering societal collapse may be a sick fantasy, but the reality is that domestic terror has claimed more lives than international terror since 9/11," Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said in a House hearing on incidents of white supremacy in the military this year.
Nazzaro said on one of the recordings: "What people decide to do outside The Base with that training and contacts they make is their business. We don't really need to know about it. I mean, sure, it's kind of better that we don't for everyone's sake and for everyone's success."
It would be quite easy to slip in some Govt. Operators--which govt.? Leave that one for you to decide...LOL!
Secret recordings of a militant neo-Nazi organization called The Base reveal that the group is recruiting people with military expertise in the U.S. and Canada to train in military operations and prepare to take advantage of what they believe is impending societal collapse.
The audio recordings are from calls between the leader of The Base and more than 100 prospective recruits using the encrypted app Wire.
Twenty percent of the prospective recruits who were recorded said they were active-duty military or had served in the military in some capacity, said documentary filmmaker Jamila Paksima, a co-host of the podcast. NBC News has listened to a significant part of the audio but could not independently verify their identities or their claims.
The leader of The Base, Rinaldo Nazzaro, who was born in the U.S., runs his operation out of his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia, which he discusses in the recordings.
Mollie Saltskog, senior intelligence analyst at The Soufan Group, an international security consultancy, said: "Extremely lethal and dangerous operations that believe in an impending race war like The Base or Atomwaffen make a concerted effort to recruit people with military experience. Having these types of people in these types of organizations increases their operational capabilities to commit acts of terrorism."
Saltskog said reports that Nazzaro is based in Russia "raise flags about the potential for foreign influence on these white supremacist organizations operating on American soil."
Nazzaro formerly was known only by his online aliases, Norman Spear and Roman Wolf, until The Guardian revealed his identity in January.
The Guardian and the BBC used photos and property records to show the links between Nazzaro and the Spear alias. The Guardian, for example, found tax affidavits signed by Nazzaro for a property in Washington state linked to Spear and owned by a company called Base Global. It also matched images of Spear with photos of Nazzaro posted on social media by his wife. The BBC, meanwhile, traced Nazzaro and his Russian-born wife to a St. Petersburg apartment that was purchased in her name. NBC News has not reviewed those records.
"We are survivalism, a self-defense network," Nazzaro said in one of the recordings. "Our mission's very, very simple. It is training and networking, preparing for collapse. We want to be in a position where we're ready, we're prepared enough, ready enough that we can take advantage of whatever chaos, power vacuum, that might emerge. We want to try and fill that power vacuum and take advantage of the chaos."
The Justice Department calls The Base a "violent extremist group." Members of The Base in the U.S. have been arrested on charges of possession of weapons, vandalism and conspiracy to commit murder.
"They hate Jews and African Americans. Their goal is to use terrorism to start a race war and collapse the United States. Triggering societal collapse may be a sick fantasy, but the reality is that domestic terror has claimed more lives than international terror since 9/11," Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said in a House hearing on incidents of white supremacy in the military this year.
Nazzaro said on one of the recordings: "What people decide to do outside The Base with that training and contacts they make is their business. We don't really need to know about it. I mean, sure, it's kind of better that we don't for everyone's sake and for everyone's success."
