FBI foils alleged New Year’s Eve bomb plot organized by pro-Palestinian group

AG Bondi says ‘Turtle Island Liberation Front’ was planning ‘series of bombings’ against federal targets in Los Angeles; four arrested in CA, one in New Orleans for separate plot

The FBI recently foiled a plot to carry out coordinated bombing attacks on New Year’s Eve across Southern California, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Monday.

“The Turtle Island Liberation Front — a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group — was preparing to conduct a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve. The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles,” Bondi said in a statement.

Four people have been charged with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California.

The four defendants named in the complaint were Audrey Illeene Carroll, Zachary Aaron Page, Dante Gaffield, and Tina Lai.

The suspects were arrested last week in Lucerne Valley, a desert city east of Los Angeles, where they were suspected of preparing to test improvised explosive devices ahead of the planned bombings, according to the complaint.

The bombing plot called for explosive devices to be planted at five locations, targeting two US companies in the Los Angeles area at midnight on New Year’s Eve, it said.

A fifth person was arrested in New Orleans for “allegedly planning a separate violent attack,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X, adding that each plot was deemed a “credible, imminent terrorist threat.”

According to a sworn statement in support of the complaint, Carroll in November presented an eight-page handwritten document to a paid confidential source titled “Operation Midnight Sun,” which described a bomb plot.

Carroll and Page later allegedly recruited the other two defendants to help carry out the plan, including having them “acquiring bomb-making materials and traveling to a remote location in the Mojave Desert to construct and detonate test explosive devices on December 12, 2025,” the sworn statement alleged.

Evidence photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn 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 to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint stated.

FBI agents intervened, however, before they could complete their work to assemble a functional explosive device.

“Turtle Island” was an indigenous name for North America that is often deployed by leftists to describe the US.

Recent polls have found that the American left is increasingly open to political violence.