ATLANTA — Three men arrested in Georgia this week who allegedly had plans to murder a Bartow County couple have been linked to a violent white supremacist group, according to documents unsealed by authorities on Friday.
Three other men, including a former Canadian armed forces reservist, were arrested in Maryland on Thursday. According to the Justice Department, those men were tied to the same violent extremist group, which is called The Base.
According to an affidavit unsealed by a judge in Floyd County, Ga., on Friday, the three men involved in the Georgia murder plot had detailed plans to kill a couple that they described as high-ranking members of an extreme left-leaning group -- Atlanta Antifascists.
The men arrested in Maryland were believed to heading to a pro-gun rally next week in Richmond, Va., according to federal authorities.
The Base is described as a militant, terroristic network of neo-Nazis and white supremacists who have been establishing an underground network of loosely connected cells since being founded in late 2017 or early 2018.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, they value the philosophies of leaderless resistance, survivalism and preparedness, and "off-the-grid" living; and they hope to attract other white supremacists who are steeped in the skills and tactics of those philosophies.
The group desires the collapse of the United States and its democracy, the SPLC said.
The federal complaint tied to the three men arrested in Maryland alleges that the group's members discussed, among other things, recruitment, creating a white ethnostate, committing acts of violence against minority communities, including African Americans and Jewish Americans, the organization's military-style training camps, and ways to make improvised-explosive devices in The Base's encrypted chat rooms.
Two of the three men arrested in Maryland were charged with transporting and harboring others and conspiring to do so. One of them also faces weapons charges.
The third man arrested in Maryland, the former Canadian armed forces reservist, also faces weapons charges along with being unlawfully present in the United States.
The Base is only one of a number of extremist groups across the United States, many of which have been increasing their presence across the nation and have a desire for violence against others within the country.
According to the SPLC, they maintain an "off-the-grid" presence and communicate primarily through underground internet-based apps and other resources that cannot be easily tracked.
In 2018, the SPLC said they have tracked more than 1,000 hate groups across the nation, with more than 40 of them having a presence in the state of Georgia alone.
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