Underground cult linked to neo-Nazis exposed after soldier allegedly planned attacks on colleagues

O9A has grown in influence among a number of neo-Nazi groups internationally – including one organisation linked to five murders, Kim Sengupta reports

Information was passed to O9A with the ‘explicit aim of organising an attack at a base abroad’ (EPA)

The role of an underground cult espousing saatanism and Nazism, which was founded in Britain, is under scrutiny after the arrest of an American soldier for allegedly conspiring to murder fellow members of the US armed forces.

A number of suspects are under investigation with further arrests expected after Private Ethan Phelan Melzer confessed to passing on sensitive military information to members of the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A): an organisation US authorities described as “an occult-based neo-Nazi and racially motivated violent extremist group”.

Mr Melzer, “the enemy within” according to investigators, was detained on 10 June following an operation by the FBI and US military police. He had, it is claimed, leaked details of the deployment of his unit to followers of O9A and RapeWaffen Division, a US neo-Nazi network, with the explicit aim of organising an attack at a base abroad.