Lance corporal machine gunner Mohammed Wadaa and former Marine Corps staff sergeant Gunnar Naughton are part of the Clockwork Crew, California’s first ‘active club,’ according to the group’s own internal research records and social media posts, as well as law enforcement sources.

Clockwork Crew’s reach also briefly extended to eastern Europe: Juraj Mesić, a Croatian neo-Nazi, headed an eight-person chapter in that country before being arrested in March for racist abuse of an immigrant worker, according to news reports and internal chats.

A 25-year-old from Oregon who has been in the Marine Corps since at least 2018, Wadaa has claimed one of his ancestors fought alongside the Nazis in the Handschar Division, an SS unit made up of Bosnian and Croatian volunteers to suppress anti-fascist partisans in the former Yugoslavia.

Ezra Liel, a 22-year-old from the central valley town of Turlock, who enlisted in the Army National Guard in 2021, is another Clockwork Crew member, according to his own social media history, photographs of his neo-Nazi tattoos posted to the group’s public channel and information obtained by the Southern California Research Club.

Photographs obtained by the Southern California Research Club show Liel participated in a Goyim Defense League march in Los Angeles and public training sessions publicised by Clockwork Crew on their Telegram account.

Far-right extremists have long been a problem in the modern US military, from race riots and Ku Klux Klan demonstrations on bases during the Vietnam war through Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh’s troubled service in the army’s First Infantry division.