White supremacist planned to blow up electricity station using drone laden with explosives, U.S says
A white supremacist is accused of trying to destroy an electricity substation in Tennessee in an attempt to bring down the regional power network and disrupt American society, authorities said Monday.
A white supremacist is accused of trying to destroy an electricity substation in Tennessee in an attempt to bring down the regional power network and disrupt American society, authorities said Monday.
Skyler Philippi, 24, of Columbia, Tennessee, was arrested after an FBI investigation found that he planned to attach a bomb to a drone and fly it into the energy facility in Nashville as part of his extremist agenda, authorities said.
Philippi is charged with the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and the attempted destruction of an energy facility. He appeared in court Monday and is due to appear again on Nov. 13. He remains in custody and faces possible life in prison.
In messages to FBI sources, Philippi espoused accelerationist views, a theory popular among far-right extremists that is predicated on large shocks causing chaos and forcing society to change its racial make-up, resulting in a white-only state, authorities said.
The theory was popularized by manifestos left by perpetrators in a number of high-profile neo-Nazi and white supremacist terrorist incidents, including the killing of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
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