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This might seem wild at first but cooperation between extreme right and jihadists is neither new nor surprising. Short thread with some thoughts about this. https://twitter.com/arawnsley/status/1275190971421032450
1. The extreme right and the military have a long and troubling history. To get up to speed check out this recent . @ICCT_TheHague policy paper which looks at far right infiltration of the military in US, UK, Canada and Germany: https://bit.ly/2Ct1Sy5
2. There are many cases of neo-Nazis collaborating with jihadists or converting to their ideology. It's no coincidence that O9A is involved here which has close links with David Myatt a former leading Combat18 strategist who converted to Islam in the late 90s and turned jihadist.
3. Myatt denies involvement in O9A but the group at least highly cherishes his writings. There are other cases as well such as Devon Arthurs in the US who turned from neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division member to jihadist and killed two of his room mates in 2017.
4. Arthurs' friend and mentor Brandon Russell was an avowed neo-Nazi and serving in the National Guard at the time. The group also had a functional dirty bomb lying around. Atomwaffen is also known for its praise of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban: https://bit.ly/2zWqvT7
5. In Germany just today another extreme right group called Nordadler was banned. One of its members was a close friend and room mate of Sascha L. who also switched from neo-Nazism to jihadism and was convicted of a jihadist terror plot in 2017.
6. His neo-Nazi roomy remained friends with him even later on and testified in his trial that they got along pretty well. Extremist side-switching is rare but it does happen especially to the extreme right and to jihadist groups.
7. This piece covers some of the cases including Sascha L. The main drivers of the side-switching? Anti-Semitism and gloryfication of violence which both milieus have in common. https://bit.ly/2Z2iTXA
8. It seems that the goal here was to incite more conflict between the West and Islamic world which fits well into the accelerationist concept or much older strategy of tension among right wing terrorists.
9. Also note that such forms of collaboration and side-switching are a way terrorist groups learn from each other and exchange tactical and strategic knowledge and skills.
