Officers dismantled a cell of the terror group, known as The Base – a rough English translation of al-Qaeda – after a series of raids in the eastern coastal city of Castellon, Counter-terror cops in Spain arrested three suspected members of a neo-Nazi terrorist organisation proscribed by the UK. Armed officers dismantled the cell after a series of raids in the eastern coastal city of Castellon. The terror group, known as The Base, a rough English translation of al-Qaeda, was outlawed by Dame Priti Patel, the former Home Secretary, in 2021. It seeks to violently overthrow Western governments and replace them with white ethno-states. Rinaldo Nazzaro, its founder, is an American former defence contractor who worked with US special forces in the Middle East. Nazzaro, 52, has lived in Russia for the past eight years and in April called for his members to carry out assassinations on key military and political figures in Ukraine. Officers from Spain’s national police force found an arsenal including submachine guns, handguns, ammunition, silencers, knives, machetes and a spear inside the properties.
via mirror: Three ‘members of neo-Nazi terror group’ proscribed in UK arrested by Spain police
siehe auch: Police dismantle first white supremacist terrorist cell in Spain According to the ministry of interior, the small cell from ‘The Base’ had already undergone military-style training in preparation for carrying out attacks. The National Police have arrested three people in the province of Castellón who are linked to the “terrorist organisation” known as ‘The Base’, a new international network made up of “paramilitary cells”, which “train in camps with the ultimate aim of perpetrating attacks”, according to the ministry of interior. This is the first police strike in Spanish criminal history against a white supremacist terrorist group. The police maintain that this cell, after having been trained, was ready to commit terrorist attacks on national territory. Among their possible targets, those arrested speculated about attacks on politicians, police officers, immigrants, members of the Jewish and Muslim community, activists from anti-fascist groups and members of the LGBT+ community. The leader of the cell, who was captured on Tuesday last week, has now been remanded in prison. Judge Antonio Piña has charged him and his two alleged followers with membership of a terrorist organisation, recruitment, indoctrination and training for terrorist purposes, as well as illegal possession of weapons. During the five searches carried out in the province of Castellón, nine weapons were seized, two of them firearms, ammunition, more than twenty bladed weapons and “complete military tactical equipment” used in training activities. The police also discovered supremacist material and documentation, propaganda for ‘The Base’, neo-Nazi paraphernalia, as well as documentation praising other terrorist organisations. The investigation – as reported this week by the ministry of interior – began in early 2025, when officers specialising in the fight against terrorism and radicalism from the general intelligence police headquarters (CGI) identified a highly radicalised individual aligned with the terrorist supremacist ideology of ‘The Base’. This organisation was created in July 2018 by American Rinaldo Nazzaro (known by the aliases ‘Norman Spear’ and ‘Roman Wolf’), who today lives in Russia. This collective is considered terrorist in the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Essentially, it is a “racially motivated” violent extremist group that seeks to “incite a race war to establish a white ethno-state”; US leader of global neo-Nazi terrorist group signals retribution for arrests Ben Makuch Rinaldo Nazzaro says detention of suspected Base members in Spain justifies ‘resistance … by any means necessary’. After Spanish police and Europol’s counter-terrorism section arrested three suspected members of the Base – a globally proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist group – in the eastern province of Castellón, its American leader living in Russia was defiant and signaled further actions. In a text message to the Guardian, Rinaldo Nazzaro called the arrests another “example of political persecution” by world governments that are “further justifying our resistance to its hegemonic rule by any means necessary”. The group’s presence on the Iberian peninsula underlines how its American brand of extremism, glorifying hyper-violence and modeling itself on an armed insurgency against the state, continues to popularize and be exported abroad. Nazzaro and the Base are also suspected of harboring links to Kremlin spy agencies and aiding their broader sabotage efforts. Experts were shocked at the level of organization and the arsenal of weaponry the cell was able to achieve inside of Europe. “This cell was particularly serious,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a terrorism researcher at the Counter Extremism Project who keeps tabs on the digital accounts of the Base. “It should be noted that the group’s cell in Spain had its own public Telegram channel, which is unusual, where they repeatedly called on others to join the group, shared photos of weapons training and urged militant action.” In recent months, the Base has made headlines, claiming the July assassination of a Ukrainian officer in Kyiv and other acts of terrorism inside Ukraine. Then, last week, a Luxembourg court imprisoned a Swedish member of the Base for plotting a mass casualty event at a past Eurovision singing competition. Fisher-Birch says the Spanish cell was openly endorsing the operations of the group in Ukraine as a sort of example and applauding its efforts to start a white ethnostate in the Zakarpattia region of the war-torn country. Similarly, the Spanish cell advocated online for “calculated ruthlessness” against its perceived enemies and to “acquire mountain land to form protected, self-sufficient and self-managed white communities”. A data dump of the Base’s Spanish Telegram activities reviewed by the Guardian contains propaganda videos, photos, and other posts with what appear to be automatic rifles and other firearms. Ted Kaczynski, the legal name of the Unabomber who sent letter bombs and other explosives to American business executives from his Montana shack during the 70s and into the 90s, also appears to be idolized by the cell.