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Leaked chats expose 7 white nationalist US military members

US President Donald Trump speaks to US troops at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, February 28, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Several active members of the US military have been linked to a notorious white nationalist group after their secret chat logs were published online, according to a new report.

Two Marines, an Army physician, an Air Force member, a member of the Texas National Guard and two Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) cadets were found to be members of Identity Evropa – a far-right group listed as extremist by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Huffington Post reported Monday.

The group’s members used to chat on a server provided by the Discord chat service, which is popular among the "alt-right" groups because of its anonymity and privacy features.

However, the complete contents of the specific server used by Identity Evropa were leaked online last week by independent media organization Unicorn Riot, revealing identifying information of many members

The chat logs showed that the US servicemen used deeply racist language and exchanged ideas about spreading Evropa propaganda on college campuses and public venues.

It is worth mentioning that Identify Evropa was created by an ex-Marine and took on a key role in organizing the deadly white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, which killed one person and injured many others in 2017.

Demonstrators opposed to a far-right rally being held near the White House gather August 12, 2018 in Washington, DC, one year after deadly violence at a similar protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Photo by AFP)

The US Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Texas National Guard have confirmed that these servicemen are on active duty and that investigations are ongoing to see whether they have committed any acts of extremism or discrimination.

Several of the identified personnel have been deployed overseas, including to Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Another member, identified by the Air Force as Airman First Class (E-3) Dannion Phillips, was stationed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

The revelation comes days after Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old white supremacist born in Australia, killed 50 Muslim worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The attack received worldwide condemnation but some far-right elements, including members of the US military, not only refused to distance themselves from such acts of violence, they also mocked the victims and tried to defend the assailant.

A US Marine named Erik Rijos posted a video on his Instagram after the attack, where he played a song in which a gunman told his victims to run "faster than my bullet" and "outrun my gun."

"My boi (sic) said this for the people of the New Zealand mosque," Rijos wrote on Instagram, referring to a live video that Tarrant streamed online as he gunned down people inside one of the mosques.

US president Donald Trump’s refusal to recognize white supremacy as an urgent threat has allowed far-right groups to act more freely and recruit more members of the US military.

Last month, security agents detained a white nationalist Coast Guard officer who was stockpiling weapons at home planning a massacre of leftists, Democratic lawmakers and some left-leaning reporters to help establish what he called a "white homeland."

Reports emerged last year showed that some US military members had secretly joined a neo-Nazi extremist group.

According to a poll conducted by the Military Times website in 2017, some 25 percent of American troops said they were aware of the existence of white nationalists within their ranks.

This is while around 30 percent of the US service members viewed white nationalism was a greater threat to US national security than crises in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.

Tarrant had written in his 74-page-long "manifesto" that he viewed Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose."


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