FBI disrupted alleged terrorist bombing plot in Los Angeles, according to officials
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Monday that the FBI disrupted a "massive and horrific terror plot" by an anti-government extremist group allegedly planning a series of bombings against multiple targets in Orange County and Los Angeles, California, beginning on New Year's Eve.
Bondi said the plot by the so-called "Turtle Island Liberation Front," which she described in the announcement as a "far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government and anti-capitalist group," also "planned to target ICE agents and vehicles."
At a Los Angeles press conference Monday morning, Bill Essayli, assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, and Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said that four people -- identified as Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30, Zachary Aaron Page, 32, Dante Gaffield, 24, and Tina Lai, 41 -- were arrested and each charged with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device.
Additional charges are expected to be filed against the suspects, Essayli said.
The FBI on Friday “intercepted a scheme by members of a violent extremist group we believe determined to detonate explosives at multiple businesses on New Year's Eve," according to Davis.
The four people arrested, whom Davis said were "members of a radical faction of the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), a violent homegrown anti-government group," allegedly planned to plant backpacks containing improvised explosive devices "to be detonated at multiple locations in Southern California targeting U.S. companies."
The IEDs were coordinated to detonate at midnight on New Year's Eve, Davis said, adding that the suspects were arrested Friday by the FBI while they were allegedly assembling the devices in the desert.
All four will appear in federal court Monday afternoon, according to officials.
Though he declined to name the companies that were allegedly targeted, Essayli described them as "logistics centers." He added that there were "at least five" locations that the suspects allegedly planned to target in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
According to the criminal complaint, Carroll provided a confidential human source with the FBI a handwritten document in November titled "Operation Midnight Sun" that detailed the alleged plot to plant backpacks with IEDs that would be simultaneously detonated at midnight on New Year's Eve, targeting two U.S. companies.
Carroll and other participants are alleged to have formed a Signal chat known as the "Order of the Black Lotus," which Carroll deemed a "radical" faction of the TILF, and ultimately used it to discuss their bombing plot, according to the complaint.
In their Operation Midnight Sun planning book, the group is alleged to have gone into meticulous detail, arranging how they would split into teams and plant backpacks with IEDs along their "assigned buildings," the complaint says. An "off ground team member" would be assigned to monitor police scanners in the event law enforcement was alerted or responding to their designated scenes, according to the complaint.
In a search of Carroll's residence, according to the complaint, investigators uncovered posters and materials associated with TILF, including one reading "DEATH TO ICE," and another reading "DEATH TO AMERICA, LONG LIVE TURTLE ISLAND & PALESTINE."
FBI Director Kash Patel also posted Monday that a fifth person "believed to be linked" to the Turtle Island Liberation Front had been arrested by the FBI in New Orleans for "allegedly planning a separate violent attack."
