C-4 explosive attack plotted against energy facility to ignite race war: feds

A 24-year-old white supremacist has been charged with plotting to use weapons of mass destruction on an energy facility in Nashville, Tennessee, federal prosecutors said in a news release Monday.

Skyler Philippi, a so-called "accelerationist" who believes the destruction of society must be hastened to bring about race war, planned to use a drone equipped with explosives to target an electric substation, telling a confidential source such an attack would "shock the system" and bring down large parts of the power grid, the Justice Department said.

Philippi was also flagged earlier this year in a Raw Story exclusive investigation into online networks radicalizing young people into racial extremist groups. He was an administrator of a white nationalist Telegram channel known as the Primal Aryan Warlord Gang, or PAWG, which celebrated white supremacist violence and racially motivated mass killings.

ALSO READ: Dems freaking out over ‘grossly incompetent’ Harris operation in Pennsylvania

"In September 2024, Philippi drove with undercover employees (UCEs) of the FBI to an electric substation previously researched and targeted by Philippi, and Philippi conducted reconnaissance of the substation," prosecutors said in the release. "While driving, Philippi ordered a plastic explosive composition known as C-4 and other explosives from the UCEs. Philippi later purchased black powder to be used in pipe bombs, which Philippi intended to use during the attack on the substation."

“If you want to do the most damage as an accelerationist, attack high economic, high tax, political zones in every major metropolis,” Philippi allegedly texted an informant, adding, “Holy s---. This will go up like a f---in fourth of July firework.”

Philippi was busted after he performed a ritualistic prayer to Odin and drove to the operation site with informants, where he was apprehended by federal agents.

“Those fueled by hate and inspired to violence by racial or ethnic bias pose a grave threat to our national security,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said of the case. “We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to identify, disrupt, and hold accountable those who seek to wage such hate-fueled violence, which has no place in America or anywhere else.”