Leader of international neo-Nazi group was 13-year-old from Estonia, report claims

(JTA) — A 13-year-old Estonian led an international neo-Nazi group that planned to bomb a synagogue and a U.S. news network, according to an Associated Press report.

The teen called himself “Commander” of the Feuerkrieg Division, a group that the Anti-Defamation League says “embraces the most extreme interpretations of white supremacist ideology,” until Estonian police intervened in January, according to the AP. A report about the teen was first published Wednesday in the weekly Estonian newspaper Eesti Ekspress.

The teenager will not face criminal charges, a spokesman for the Estonian Internal Security Service told The Associated Press.

“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,” Harrys Puusepp told the AP. “Cooperation between several authorities, and especially parents, is important to steer a child away from violent extremism.”

The police spokesman didn’t identify the teen as a group leader, but the AP report says leaked archives of Feuerkrieg Division members’ online chats show that “Commander” referred to himself as the founder of the group and alluded to being from Saaremaa, Estonia’s largest island.

The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate groups, says on its website that the Feuerkrieg Division “calls for violence against their perceived enemies and destruction of ‘the system,’ or society at large, which they believe is controlled by the Jews.”

The group said the Feuerkrieg Division’s founder lives in Estonia, but its membership is “increasingly American.” In February, a 23-year-old Las Vegas man pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a firearm, related to charges that he planned to bomb a local synagogue. He had been in touch online with Feuerkrieg Division members.