Combat 18

Insurgency Overview

Combat 18, abbreviated as C18, is an international neo-Nazi terror group. Founded in 1992 in England as an offshoot of the far-right British National Party (BNP), the group has since spread internationally to Northern Ireland, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Greece, and elsewhere. Initially serving as its paramilitary wing, C18 soon split from the BNP and began a campaign of far-right propaganda, doxxing, harassment, and terrorist attacks. It targeted immigrants, Jewish people, and other ethnic minorities as well as left and right-wing political rivals (1).

These actions serve to achieve the group’s goal of overthrowing the “Jewish cabal” it believes is controlling governments across the world and creating white ethnostates in the wake. Besides its neo-Nazi ideology, the group also uses Nazi symbols, including the Totenkopf, or death’s head. The 18 in its name is in reference to Adolf Hitler’s initials, as one and eight are the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, AH. While the group has a central leadership, it is structured as a network of independent cells (2). C18 has developed relationships with various right-wing and fascist groups across the world and has been designated as a terrorist group and banned in various countries, including Canada and Germany (3) (4).

Combat 18 graffiti on a statue of Polish boxing coach Feliks Stamm.

History & Foundations

In 1982, former National Front leader John Tyndall formed the British National Party in an attempt to bring together the United Kingdom’s divided far-right. The BNP participated in elections across the country. The party also organized public demonstrations, clashing with left-wing and anti-fascist counter-protesters such as the Anti-Nazi League. In order to provide muscle against counter-protesters, the BNP formed a paramilitary wing in 1992. It was led by Charlie Sargent, a football hooligan and convicted drug dealer, and Harold Covington, a prolific American neo-Nazi known for his association with the Northwestern Territorial Imperative white separatist movement. However, it attracted the BNP’s more hardline, violence-prone members, which quickly created a divide between the two organizations. Tyndall grew concerned over the group’s influence within the BNP as well as their activities, which hurt the BNP’s reputation and chances of electoral success. Besides attacks on public targets such as left-wing bookstores and newspapers, its members would often get into fights with other BNP members. The group held its own meeting without BNP leadership present and decided to form an independent organization, Combat 18. This drove Tyndall to ban C18 members from the BNP (1).

Following the split from the BNP, C18 ramped up its campaign of violent extremism as its ranks swelled full of football hooligans. While many of their attacks consisted of little more than drunken fights with random minorities outside of pubs and football matches, there was simultaneously a more organized effort within C18 to confront its enemies. Steve Sargent, Charlie Sargent’s younger brother, started a newspaper, Redwatch, containing addresses, phone numbers, and personal information of potential targets, which led to harassment campaigns and sometimes violent attacks. Typically, targets included anti-fascists, socialists, supporters of other left-wing causes, such as the anti-apartheid movement. C18 met their opposition on the streets and clashed with left-wing activists at demonstrations. Journalists for left-wing publications were also threatened (2).

Some of these more sophisticated plots were easily foiled by law enforcement, such as Danish C18 member Thomas Nakaba’s 1997 mail bomb plot orchestrated by Notorious C18 thug Will “The Beast” Browning. Nakaba attempted to mail three bombs to targets: Anti-Fascist Action, leaders of a rival group known as the British Movement, and Sharron Davies, a former Olympic swimmer married to a Black man. He was followed by police officers while he posted packages containing the bombs and was arrested the next morning (1).

But C18 also took on its own. At a 1994 neo-Nazi event in Belgium, C18 members attacked Flemish nationalists for their support of Irish republicans. Browning attacked two high-level BNP members, Eddie Butler and Tony Lecomber. Butler was beaten and thrown into a manhole while Lecomber was slashed across the face (1).

At the same time, C18 strengthened their ties to loyalists in Northern Ireland. Members were caught trafficking small arms for paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) multiple times in the early 1990s (2). In 1995, English football hooligans travelled to Dublin, Ireland for what was supposed to be a friendly football match between England and the Republic of Ireland. Following far-right and loyalist chants from English fans, the match descended into violence and had to be cancelled in the first half. A riot followed in which twenty people were injured and forty were arrested. Irish police were informed about the presence of twenty hooligans donning C18 memorabilia before the match, but did not act on the information (5).

Following the 1993 death of Ian Stuart Donaldson, the frontman of C18-affiliated neo-Nazi punk band Skrewdriver and Charlie Sargent’s former roommate, C18 took control of Blood and Honour, Donaldson’s music promotion company, and its affiliate record label, ISD Records. This created a significant source of income for the organization. In the span of two years, the label made 200,000 GBP (7).

Tensions within C18 grew as Sargent wanted to grow C18 into a mainstream far-right organization like the BNP instead of the clandestine terror group the rival faction, led by Browning, desired. Browning’s faction also disputed Sargent and his loyalists over profits from ISD Records, and Browning accused Sargent of being a police informant. Browning managed to take over C18’s leadership from Sargent in 1997. In retaliation, Sargent organized a plot to murder a messenger for Browning, 28-year-old Christopher Castle. Castle was stabbed in the back at Sargent’s home in Essex, England by former Skrewdriver guitarist Martin Cross while Browning waited outside in a car. Castle was killed and Sargent and Cross were convicted for his murder (7).

After consolidating his power, Browning made several trips to Scandinavian countries to connect with far-right leaders there and establish a C18 presence in the region. This was followed by a series of crimes by C18 affiliates, including a bank robbery and a car bombing (1). Meanwhile, several splinter groups formed from C18 in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the White Wolves, the Racial Volunteer Force, and the National Socialist Movement. Following Browning’s coup of C18 and Sargent’s imprisonment, Sargent’s loyalists flocked to the NSM. Two former C18 members, Eddie Stanton and David Myatt, headed the group. Myatt, an important ideological figure within the contemporary extreme-right, previously was alleged to have led the Order of Nine Angels, a neo-Nazi/satanic organization responsible for terrorism, human sacrifice, and sexual abuse (2). In 1998, Myatt converted to Islam and was arrested during a crackdown by UK law enforcement agencies. Others arrested included Steve Sargent and two serving British soldiers, who were alleged to have trained other C18 members using their military expertise (7).

In 1999, neo-Nazi David Copeland sent out three nail bombs across London. These attacks targeted areas frequented by Black, Bangladeshi, and LGBTQ Londoners, respectively. The bombings killed three people and an unborn child while injuring 140. While the White Wolves claimed responsibility for the attacks before his arrest, Copeland was found to be an NSM member. He claimed he was inspired by The Turner Diaries and hoped his actions would trigger a race war. However, Browning wrote him off as mentally ill (1).

Charlie Sargent was released from prison in 2013. However, he quickly found himself incarcerated yet again the next year as he was found to have violated his parole by associating with several of his former C18 comrades, including Eddie Stanton, who posted a photo of the two online, and plotting to attack former political rivals. He got into a brawl outside an Essex pub along with several other C18 members, for which he was arrested and sent back to prison (8).

Throughout the 2010s, C18 cells continued terrorist attacks across the world. Three men that police claimed were members of C18 were arrested in Perth, Australia for shooting at a mosque in 2010. Nobody was killed (9). In 2012, C18 members firebombed a building of Romani families in Czechia, and in 2018, Greek police arrested eleven C18 members in Athens, foiling an alleged bombing plot (3) (10).

In 2019, Walter Lübcke, a German politician, was murdered outside of his house by Stephan Ernst, an alleged C18 member. C18 was banned in Germany in 2020 due to Lübcke’s murder. The organization unsuccessfully challenged the ban in court (4). Following the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, the Canadian government also designated C18 along with Blood and Honour as terrorist groups in June 2019 in an effort to clamp down on far-right extremism (3). The two groups had their assets frozen by the UK government in January 2025 (11).

Objectives & Ideology

Combat 18’s ideology revolves around the existence of what it and other white supremacist groups call the Zionist Occupied Government, or ZOG. The ZOG is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming the existence of a Jewish cabal controlling countries worldwide. This means that instead of wanting to establish influence within existing governments and using the state to reach its goals, C18 plans to use terror attacks to topple governments and eliminate racial and political enemies. Some C18 members have said that extermination is their preferred solution to rid their hypothetical post-revolution ethnostate of enemies, while others have advocated for deportation (1).

C18 cemented its importance in the contemporary extreme-right movement by becoming a blueprint for today’s clandestine terror groups like The Base and the Atomwaffen Division, marking a split within the far-right from the populist white nationalism of groups like the BNP and the National Front. Many of C18’s core principles come from Harold Covington, who was greatly influenced by American white separatist movements of the 1970s and 80s. Covington was an advocate for the Northwestern Territorial Imperative, an idea popular with white separatist movements advocating for the creation of a white ethnostate in the Northwestern United States. When he came to the UK to set up C18, he brought these ideas with him and spread them internationally. Charlie Sargent also cited Robert Matthews, founder of The Order, as an influence (1). The Order followed the instructions detailed in white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries to start a white supremacist revolution to overthrow the US government, starting with a series of bank robberies to fund its activities. The group also murdered Alan Berg, a Jewish radio show host. Another thing C18 took from The Order was the concept of leaderless resistance, where a network of autonomous cells act independent of one another to avoid infiltration (2).

Political & Military Capabilities

In its early days, Combat 18 primarily recruited from white, working-class areas of London, Essex, and Northern England. At the time of the group’s founding, these areas had little economic opportunity for their young residents living in dilapidated council estates. This, combined with waves of migration that caused racial tension within low-income communities, created the perfect storm for white supremacist groups to build their ranks with the allure of brotherhood and violence. During the mid-1990s, C18 had some 200 core members in the UK. Their relatively small numbers were often backed up in street fights by football hooligans and skinheads, which the group recruited from. New members were often friends of existing members and the recruitment process was informal (2).

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, C18 started to expand abroad. By then, it already had strong connections with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. Will Browning cultivated relationships with white supremacist groups in Central and Northern Europe, where C18 established a presence and recruited members (1). Meanwhile, the group began to use the internet to share its literature and propaganda even further, with cells popping up as far as Greece and Australia (10) (9).

Approach to Resistance

Although a detailed plan for a white supremacist revolution lies at the core of the group’s ideology, many within Combat 18’s rank-and-file during its heyday in the 1990s were not as ideologically motivated as, say, Myatt or Covington. This was due to C18’s recruiting practices. Many got involved with the group for their shared penchant for violence and drinking, while their racist beliefs were secondary. Oftentimes, its leaders have not been its most violent members. Charlie Sargent, for instance, is known to have orchestrated many attacks but did not personally participate in them, for which Will Browning was critical of Sargent (1). However, in the 2000s the group saw a shift from street fights to more coordinated attacks while many of the group’s top brass were imprisoned.

C18 has effectively used its close links to far-right elements in various subcultures to bolster its ranks and spread its message of white supremacy. In the 1990s, it maintained a presence in the football hooligan, skinhead, and white power rock scenes of the UK where there were many likeminded individuals capable of violence. Meanwhile, C18 produced media for both ideological and practical reasons. While many of the bands affiliated with Blood and Honour and ISD records had far-right themes in their music, the group produced several magazines, including Redwatch, publishing the beliefs of its leaders and the personal information of potential targets. The group moved to far-right forums and websites in the early 2000s, allowing it to build relationships with white supremacists worldwide (1).

Relations & Alliances

Combat 18’s relationship with the BNP has been a complicated one. While the two organizations split in 1993 and the BNP banned C18 members from its ranks, they maintained a working relationship. BNP leaders were known to meet and organize with C18, despite attacks on BNP members by the likes of Will Browning. Charlie Sargent saw the BNP as a failed movement that had lost touch with its base and become infiltrated by informants. He claimed that electoral politics is a futile venture for national socialists, as he believed the state to be corrupted by the ZOG (1).

Early on in its existence, C18 allied itself with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. It had a particularly strong relationship with the Ulster Defence Association, but also had connections with the rival Ulster Volunteer Force. UDA members Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, former leader of West Belfast’s infamous C Company, and Eddie Whicker of the UDA’s London branch are two prominent UDA members with ties to C18 (1).

While Charlie Sargent was not a football fan and found himself bored at the many matches he attended with other C18 members, he still saw the value in his hooligan firm allies. In particular, C18 has enjoyed support from the notorious Chelsea Headhunters. The Headhunters have long been a right-wing firm and both share the Nazi Totenkopf as a symbol. C18 has joined the Headhunters and other firms at football matches in exchange for their support in street demonstrations and fights (1).

Many of C18’s demonstrations have erupted into brawls with left-wing, antifascist groups such as Anti-Fascist Action, the Anti-Fascist League, the Anti-Nazi League, and the Anti-Racist Alliance. C18 has also targeted members of the groups in attacks and harassment campaigns, as well as journalists from left-wing publications such as Searchlight. Searchlight played a major role in exposing the group’s activities to the general public, which resulted in death threats from C18 (1).

Works Cited

(1) Lowles, N. (2001). White Riot. Milo Books.

(2) Ryan, N. (1998, February 1). Combat 18: Memoirs of a street-fighting man. The Guardian. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/combat-18-memoirs-of-a-streetfighting-man-1142204.html.

(3) Public Safety Canada (2019, June 21). Currently listed entities: Combat 18. Government of Canada. https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-en.aspx#60.

(4) BBC (2020, January 23). Germany bans Combat 18 as police raid neo-Nazi group. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51219274.

(5) The Independent (1995, April 4). Irish police did not accept help. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/irish-police-did-not-accept-help-1614349.html.

(6) Lowles, N and Ryan, N. (1998, January 25). Neo-Nazi gang war fear after murder. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/neonazi-gang-war-fear-after-murder-murder-1140723.html.

(7) Syal, R. and Gilligan, A. (1999, March 7). MI5 swoops on Army 'neo-Nazis'. Sunday Telegraph. https://web.archive.org/web/20030312203105/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=%2Farchive%2F1999%2F03%2F07%2Fnarm07.html.

(8) Lowles, N. (2014, November 27). Go directly to jail: Do not pass Go. Hope Not Hate. https://hopenothate.org.uk/2014/11/27/go-directly-jail-not-pass-go/.

(9) Robinson, C. (2010, June 4). Alleged Combat 18 members in court over mosque shooting. Perth Now. https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/alleged-combat-18-members-in-court-over-mosque-shooting-ng-2013ddaf82b453f2e5bd055b6fc8f82c.

(10) The Associated Press (2018, March 6). Greek anti-terrorism police arrest 5 in neo-Nazi crackdown. https://apnews.com/general-news-9858bf9a18cf4e68b002ad3bb37dbd98.

(11) Sanford, D. (2025, January 8). Far-right group Blood and Honour has assets frozen by government. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjzj4zrppko.