Episode 1: Cain Clark and Caleb Vazquez - The San Diego Mosque Shooters --- Introduction to Isolated Cases? ---- Some time ago I wrote an article called The Modernization of the Radical Right (Part 1 and Part 2), which can be obtained-at Liza events-in fanzine format along with a graphic guide to identifying far-right symbols, where I tried to explain how certain radicalization processes no longer occur solely through parties, formal organizations, or closed ideologies. A portion of contemporary extremist violence circulates in more diffuse spaces: forums, private servers, channels, anonymous accounts, memes, recycled manifestos, and online communities where isolated young people learn to interpret violence as identity.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Isolated Cases?
The Attack
Manifestos and Copycats
"Ongezellig" and Cultural Niches
Next Episode
Isolated Cases?, was created to analyze specific attacks that escalated from online to physical harm. The goal is not to make the perpetrators the central figures, but rather to observe patterns: shared symbols, cross-references, similar aesthetics, fascination with previous attackers, and a desire for recognition within extremist communities. When several cases share language, codes, and ways of presenting themselves to the world, the question ceases to be simply whether they are isolated incidents. We must also ask what connects them.
The term that is appearing with increasing frequency is "Nihilistic Violent Extremism," or NVE. In cases like San Diego, it doesn't describe a total absence of ideology, but rather a fragmented mix of neo-Nazism, white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny, accelerationism, and niche digital culture. It is a memetic extremism, unstable and difficult to detect if analyzed solely with traditional categories.
The attack
On May 18, 2026, 17-year-old Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego. Authorities identified them as suspects in the shooting and investigated the case as a possible hate crime. According to initial reports, both shared hostility toward various religious and racial groups.
Before the attack, there was a warning sign. The mother of one of the suspects called the police to report that her son had disappeared, that he might be at risk of suicide, that weapons were missing, and that he had taken a vehicle. She also indicated that he might be accompanied by another young man. Hours later, emergency calls came in from the Islamic center.
The victims were Amin Abdullah, a security guard at the center; Nader Awad, a local resident whose wife worked at the school connected to the complex; and Mansour Kaziha, one of the mosque's older and regular members. Abdullah, a father of eight, was identified by police as a key figure in activating the initial response and allowing others to take cover. School was in session at the complex that day, with approximately 140 students present.
According to authorities, Clark and Vazquez met online and later discovered they lived in the same area. This transition from a digital connection to a physical encounter is key to the case. The investigation recovered writings, devices, and materials associated with the attack, including a 75-page manifesto attributed to both young men and a video that circulated online.
Manifestos and copycats
The pattern is clear: manifesto, recording, symbolism, references to previous aggressors, and a desire to leave a digital mark. In this type of violence, these elements don't function solely as personal expression. They are also directed at a specific audience: users who understand the codes, archive the materials, and incorporate them into a chain of imitations.
The manifesto attributed to Clark and Vazquez contained racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, white supremacy, and references to the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory. Rather than an original text, it followed a template already seen in other attacks. Brenton Tarrant occupies a central place in this culture of imitation.
After Christchurch, other perpetrators copied parts of his model. Payton Gendron adapted that formula for a younger generation, shaped by forums, memes, graphics, obsessive documentation, and constant consumption of propaganda. Observed patterns in these situations include:
the "Sonnenrad",
writing about weapons,
militarized aesthetics
record the attack.
The staging was also part of the message. Reports mention camouflage clothing, neo-Nazi and white supremacist symbols, messages written on weapons, and an intention to record the attack. These elements are reminiscent of a visual repertoire used by other attackers. References to militant accelerationism and groups like "Atomwaffen Division," a neo-Nazi movement that advocated decentralized violence as a means to accelerate social collapse, also appear.
«Ongezellig» and cultural niches
One of the most distinctive elements of the case is the presence of "Ongezellig," an independent Dutch animated series created by Studio Massa. In the material attributed to the attackers, the series doesn't appear as a casual reference, but rather as part of a subcultural identity. Its characters and memes were reinterpreted in nationalist, incel, doomer, and school shooter cult spaces. The series doesn't explain the attack, but it helps to understand the cultural ecosystem in which these young people moved: imageboards, nihilistic humor, rejection of the mainstream, and the appropriation of other people's characters as internal codes.
The case has also been interpreted in relation to environments associated with The Com and 764. These names do not designate a single organization, but rather overlapping networks and subcultures where grooming, exploitation, blackmail, cults of murderers, aesthetic Satanism, neo-Nazism, self-harm, and peer pressure can intersect. San Diego is yet another case of online youth radicalization, access to weapons, religious and racial hatred, glorification of murderers, appropriation of memes, and possible contact with NVE subcultures. The most useful interpretation is not choosing between "neo-Nazism" or "nihilism," but understanding how both dimensions can overlap. Ideology provides enemies, symbols, and justification. Nihilism and accelerationism contribute contempt for life, a fascination with harm, and a desire for collapse.
Next episode
In the next episode, we travel to Norway, 2011. There, a figure emerges whom many subsequent attackers would study, copy, or try to surpass: Anders Behring Breivik. To understand how a massacre can become a point of reference, we must return to that summer. And to a manifesto that did not remain buried with its victims.
Don Diego de la Vega, a militant from Liza.
https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/07/12/casos-aislados-terrorismo-ultra/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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