A 24-year-old Tennessee man was arrested Saturday and charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility, the Washington Post reports. Skyler Philippi was allegedly behind a months-long white supremacist plot that attempted to blow up a Tennessee power substation in order to upend American society, another potential instance of extremism targeting critical infrastructure. Philippi hoped to further his “accelerationist” goals of bringing about an all-white culture, according to charging documents. Philippi said that he wanted to “attack high economic, high tax, political zones” and that it was “time to do something big,” while communicating with confidential sources and undercover FBI agents. He was in FBI custody in Nashville on Tuesday.
The FBI was alerted to Philippi earlier this year after he allegedly threatened a mass shooting. In July, Philippi told an undercover law enforcement source that he wanted to attack large power substations to “shock the system” and cause other substations to malfunction. He researched previous plots and attacks on power substations and planned to fly an explosives-laden drone into the substation. In September, Philippi drove with undercover FBI agents to a power substation and ordered explosives from them — inert materials that he thought were active. He later purchased black powder to be used in pipe bombs in the attack. He gave them instructions about how to avoid detection, such as leaving their phones elsewhere, wearing shoes that were too big and burning their clothes after the operation. On Saturday, the FBI news release said, Philippi and the agents participated in a ritual that included reciting a prayer and discussing Odin, the Norse god of war and the dead. According to court documents, some white supremacists adhere to Nordic “traditions involving the need to die in battle” to reach special status in the afterlife. When the agents asked whether Philippi wanted to abort the mission, court documents say, he told them that he was “fully committed” and that “this is where the New Age begins.”
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