"“It could have taken quite awhile to repair,” explained Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project. “This has been promoted by different groups and sort of sub-movements within the accelerationists online environment and they’ve put out manuals and they’ve put out videos that encourage attacks on infrastructure.”"

"“It could have taken quite awhile to repair,” explained Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project. “This has been promoted by different groups and sort of sub-movements within the accelerationists online environment and they’ve put out manuals and they’ve put out videos that encourage attacks on infrastructure.”"

“The neo-Nazi group The Base is recruiting leaders to form new cells in the United States of America. The information was transmitted by the group's leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, through messages on his private Telegram channel, cited by the British newspaper The Guardian. […] However, despite the similarities with other neo-Nazi groups — such as the international Proud Boys or the Portuguese 1143 — accelerationist groups tend to keep a lower profile, rather than promoting public demonstrations, Joshua Fisher-Birch explained to the British newspaper. The analyst, who works at the Counter Extremism Project , argued that “their focus on promoting chaos raises the possibility that they could encourage violence or commit acts of intimidation ahead of the elections.””

"Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst at the Counter Extremism Project who has kept tabs on the Base since its inception, says the group maintains several American members and that Nazzaro often talks of having poured thousands in personal finances into the group."

"For several years now, law enforcement and researchers have been monitoring racially and ethnically motivated violent white supremacist groups and their growing fascination with our country's power grid. Many in these groups are 'accelerationists,' convinced that the best way to achieve their goal of a white supremacist future is to cause society to collapse by plunging it into darkness. 'The belief is, when the lights go out, people will become violent when they realize the government can't help them,' said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project, an international policy organization. 'It's also a great recruitment tactic.' Attacking the electrical grid, he noted, is a topic of growing interest in the neo-Nazi tracts he's reviewed in recent months."

"Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project, cautioned against prescribing unsolved attacks on power stations to a certain ideological bent. Some of the attacks could have been from people hoping to steal wire, he said, or those who are simply destructive. One suspect in an attack on power infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest that cut the lights off for 14,000 people on Christmas Day said he hoped to burglarize a business after knocking out power.

But ideas about attacks on critical infrastructure are discussed constantly in Neo-Nazi messaging groups.

“There are definitely conversations happening on Telegram and happening in places where Neo-Nazi accelerationists congregate where they are discussing these attacks,” he said, “and they’re saying, ‘What can we learn from this?’""
 

"WILSON: Neo-Nazi groups have launched several plots to take out the U.S. grid in recent years. They've even put out how-to manuals to make it easier to attack vulnerable parts of the nation's critical infrastructure. Joshua Fisher-Birch is a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project, which tracks these groups' online activities.

JOSHUA FISHER-BIRCH: The recent substation attacks have been spoken about in glowing terms by certain members of the extreme right and particularly by neo-Nazi accelerationists."