LOS ANGELES – The FBI announced the arrests of four suspected members of an extremist group this week. The members allegedly plotted coordinated bombing attacks on New Year’s Eves across the Los Angeles area.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on X that members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front had planned to conduct “a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve.” Bondi describes the group as “a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group."
FBI agents arrested the suspects in Lucerne Valley, a desert city in eastern Los Angeles. According to the federal criminal complaint filed Saturday, December 13, the members aimed to test improvised explosive devices ahead of the planned attacks.
Federal authorities apprehended the individuals “before they completed assembling a functional explosive device,” the statement said.
During a news conference, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli described the group as a “radical anti-government” group.
An undercover FBI employee and informant helped uncover the operation.
The filing claims that a suspect gave a classified source a “handwritten document titled ‘OPERATION MIDNIGHT SUN’ that described a bombing plot.”
The statement disclosed the person who allegedly gave the document that explained the plan as Audre Illeene Carroll. Authorities detained Carroll alongside Zachary Aaron Page, Dante Gaffield, and Tina Lai.
“Specifically, the plan contemplated planting backpacks with ‘IEDs,’ or Improvised Explosive Devices, to be simultaneously detonated at five locations targeting two U.S. companies at midnight on New Year’s Eve 2025 in the Central District of California,” the filing explained.
Photo evidence provided in the court documents shows a desert campsite. Investigators discovered bomb-making materials across plastic folding tables.
The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material used as fuses, among others,” the complaint issued.
