A 13-year-old boy in Estonia was a key figure in an international neo-Nazi group that has been linked to plots to attack a Las Vegas synagogue and detonate a car bomb at a major U.S. news network, the Associated Press reported.
The boy, who called himself “Commander” online, was a leader of Feuerkrieg Division, though severed ties with the neo-Nazi group after authorities in Estonia confronted him earlier this year, according to police and an Estonian newspaper report.
Harrys Puusepp, a spokesperson for the Estonian Internal Security Service, told the AP that police “intervened in early January because of a suspicion of danger” and “suspended this person’s activities in” Feuerkrieg Division.
“As the case dealt with a child under the age of 14, this person cannot be prosecuted under the criminal law and instead other legal methods must be used to eliminate the risk. Cooperation between several authorities, and especially parents, is important to steer a child away from violent extremism,” said Puusepp.
While the spokesperson did not explicitly identify the child as a group leader, leaked archives of online chats by Feuerkrieg Division members show that “Commander” referred to himself as the founder of the group and hinted to being from Saaremaa, Estonia’s largest island.
A report published last week by the Estonian newspaper Eesti Ekspress said Estonian security officials investigated a case involving a 13-year-old boy who allegedly was running Feuerkrieg Division operations out of a small town in Estonia. According to the newspaper the group has a “decentralized structure,” and while the boy cannot be considered Feuerkrieg Division’s leader, he was certainly one of its main figures.
