Western intelligence agencies are monitoring neo-fascist fight clubs, known as 'active clubs', which are considered a burgeoning national security threat. These pseudo mixed martial arts gangs, inspired by Adolf Hitler's teachings, are moving across borders and have caught the attention of security services typically focused on proscribed terrorist organisations like Islamic State.
According to experts and government documents reviewed by the Guardian, active clubs represent an evolving and quickly growing threat. Joshua Fisher-Birch, a terrorism analyst at the Counter Extremism Project, said intelligence agencies want to be aware of extremist networks in their countries, their potential for violence, and links to other movements internationally.
Evidence of international coordination has emerged. In August, a Canadian active club, Nationalist-13, released a video of a national meetup featuring emblems of US chapters from Illinois and Wisconsin, as well as Patriot Front, an American hate group. A classified January report from Canada's spy agency, CSIS, noted the threat of active clubs' transnational collaboration and potential to empower ties.
The report warned that travel by active club members between countries for networking and martial arts training could reinforce links, share information, and strengthen capabilities, ultimately leading to violence. It remains unclear how many individuals travel, but the movement uses Telegram to promote international links, including legal defence for Australian neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, who once tried to recruit the Christchurch mass shooter.
A 2023 Canadian intelligence report noted that neo-Nazi active clubs have endorsed calls on Telegram for violence targeting Jews and the US government. Peter Smith, a Canada-based extremism researcher, said it is understandable that authorities are interested in groups that openly espouse neo-Nazi ideology and orchestrate cross-border meetups, seeing themselves as part of an international movement to 'retake' their countries.
