Ex-US soldier with ISIS, neo-Nazi sympathies sentenced for terrorism plot

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – A former US Army soldier was sentenced to 45 years in prison on Friday in a New York courtroom for a terrorist plot that would have targeted his own unit, after it deployed to Turkey. 

The plot shows that far right terrorists and Islamic extremists can work together. They both are inclined to violence, and they both want to attack the U.S. and its allies. Their different world views are not a barrier to coordination.

The convicted soldier, Ethan Phelan Melzer, a 24 year old from Louisville, Kentucky, comes across in court papers as a foul-mouthed lout: a young man, looking for fame and glory—a “useful idiot,” as Lenin reportedly referred to such people.

But Melzer messed up badly. His plot was known to authorities almost from the start. It never had a chance of success, and he will spend most of the rest of his life in a federal prison.

Indeed, by the time of Melzer’s sentencing, the mindless bravado that had characterized his earlier actions, had disappeared. “His hands trembled,” the Associated Press reported, as the judge “said he deserved the maximum, because of the lasting harm he caused by sharing U.S. military secrets.”

Clearly, Melzer had not anticipated such an outcome, when he was posting to a right-wing Telegram chat group, which the FBI had infiltrated.

Two Ideologies Combine

In describing the case, The New York Times explained that “Melzer joined the U.S. Army in 2018” and “steeped himself in O9A propaganda.” In fact, he was already a member of O9A, when he joined the army, as the prosecution stated in court documents. 

O9A, the Organization of Nine Angles, is a right-wing group, first established in Britain several decades ago. It claims to have begun in the 1960s, although it only became known publicly in the 1980s.

Melzer collected “literature published by the Islamic State or ISIS,” the Times said. “As part of their inquiry, federal agents later found an iCloud account that Private Melzer used to store an ISIS document describing the murders of U.S. military personnel.”

The prosecution’s Sentencing Submission provided a similar perspective on the compatibility of far-right groups and Islamic extremists.

“O9A embraces terrorism, including radical Islamic jihadist ideology and the violent tactics of jihadist groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (‘ISIS’) and al Qaeda, as a means to accelerate the decline of Western society and to attack Jewish people in particular,” it stated.

This perspective runs counter to the U.S. tendency to see ideology as defining and exclusive. That perspective holds that only Muslim extremists would embrace a radical Islamic ideology, and they would not work with others who did not share their ideology.

That, for example, was an argument used against those who suggested that Saddam Hussein might have been involved in the 9/11 attacks. However, as the New York prosecutors demonstrated, ideology does not necessarily play such a definitive role.

The Plot

In October 2019, Melzer’s unit—the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team—was sent to Vicenza, Italy. In April 2020, they were going to be deployed to Turkey to protect a sensitive military base.

Soon thereafter, Melzer informed an O9A Telegram group of his unit’s deployment, suggesting that, working with Islamic extremists, they should arrange an attack on his unit.

He provided information on “the unit’s size, anticipated travel routes in Turkey, weaponry, and defense capabilities, which Melzer understood CC-1,” an unnamed Co-Conspirator, “would use to facilitate an attack on the Unit,” the complaint issued by the prosecution explained.

Both CC-1 and Melzer expressed their willingness to work with Islamic extremists in Turkey to carry out the attack. “Imao [in my arrogant opinion] RW [RapeWaffen Division of O9A] is officially chill with the hajis,” CC-1 texted, according to the complaint. 

Melzer responded that he “[u]sed to be cool with a couple IS [Islamic State] members who lived in France” and that “3 of them are dead now, and the last 2 I’ve lost contact with lately,” the complaint added.

The FBI, however, had a confidential source within the group. From the start, the source was reporting what Melzer was telling the group. At the direction of the FBI, the source pushed Melzer to be clearer, as he was gathering evidence that would be used against him. 

The source noted that Melzer might well die in such an attack, and Melzer replied that it would be worth it. “[You] just gotta understand that I am risking my literal free life to give you all this” and “expecting results,” the complaint stated.

“If we were to trigger this the right way, the amount of [explicative] this would cause would cover it [i.e. his own death.] My life would be absolutely meaningless in the amount of [explicative] it would cause,” Melzer stated. “[A]nother 10 year war in the Middle East would definitely leave a mark.”

Others involved in the chat room, including CC-1 and CC-4, joined in discussing the plot, which centered on a jihadi attack on a U.S. base in Turkey that would cause significant casualties. In their view, that would trigger a broad U.S. war in the Middle East.

On its face, the plot seems incoherent and pointless, but those involved also seemed serious, and Melzer was divulging classified information. On May 30, US authorities moved. He was arrested by military police, even as the rest of his unit left for Turkey. 

Interviewed by the FBI that day, Melzer confessed to almost everything. Two years later, when he appeared in court, he pled guilty, and on Friday, he was given a 45-year sentence.