The FBI foiled a New Year’s Eve terrorist plot, arresting four members of a radical anti-Israel extremist group accused of planning five coordinated bombings across Los Angeles, the Department of Justice announced Monday. The scheme involved painting Hamas triangles near their targets, and photos show “Free Palestine” stickers scattered across bomb-making stations, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint indicates that Audrey Illeene Carroll, Zachary Aaron Page, Dante Gaffield, and Tina Lai—who were charged by federal prosecutors with conspiracy and possession of unregistered destructive devices following their Friday arrest—hold significant ties to the anti-Israel movement. They belong to the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), “an anti-capitalist, anti-government movement” centered around militant, anti-Israel rhetoric and open endorsement of violence.
Their alleged plot included spray painting upside-down triangles—a symbol Hamas uses to denote Israeli targets—near the buildings they planned to bomb. A search of Carroll’s residence also uncovered posters with Hamas triangles seen on TILF’s Instagram page, which have also appeared at the group’s protests, and a photograph of the group’s bomb-making stations included “Free Palestine” stickers.
The TILF members allegedly planned to target two companies in their attack. While the complaint did not name the companies, the group protested against Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense company, outside its Los Angeles office earlier this month. “These genocidal war criminals have no place in our city, and no place in Palestine. Never let them live in peace,” the group wrote on Instagram.
TILF, which is named after an indigenous term for North America, has also expressed support for “Arab resistance” and has appeared at protests displaying signs reading “Israel has the right to go to hell.” Other slogans promoted by the group include “Free Palestine or scorch the earth.” The group has also called for “Death to ICE,” and “Death to America.”
The day after the arrests, the TILF group was scheduled to participate in a Palestine-focused market event in Los Angeles sponsored by left-wing activist group Code Pink, which has worked on behalf of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine members.
TILF’s plot is just the latest to be foiled by federal authorities. In late October, the FBI announced the arrest of multiple suspects in Dearborn, Mich., in connection with a jihadist-inspired ISIS-linked terror plot timed for the Halloween weekend.
Federal investigators began uncovering the scheme after a confidential informant embedded in the group reported that Carroll, who runs TILF’s Instagram account, had distributed copies of an eight-page handwritten attack plan, dubbed “Operation Midnight Sun,” during in-person meetings with other TILF members. According to the complaint, the informant provided the FBI with a physical copy of the document and later recorded additional meetings in which the plot was discussed in detail.
The attack plan laid out instructions for constructing complex pipe bombs, conducting surveillance, evading law enforcement, and destroying evidence after the attack. It called for coordinated teams to plant backpacks with explosive devices at five separate locations and detonate them simultaneously at midnight on Dec. 31, 2025. The plot explicitly cited New Year’s Eve fireworks as a way to mask the sound of explosions and delay detection by authorities.
At one meeting, Page asked those present whether “they would be interested in receiving firearms training.” Carroll added that she had a contact “who could obtain unregistered ARs” and claimed another TILF member with prior military experience could help source parts, according to the complaint.
Investigators also obtained access to encrypted communications used by the group. According to Signal messages reviewed by the FBI, the conspirators used a group chat titled “Order of the Black Lotus”—described by Carroll as their space “for everything radical”—to coordinate logistics, assign roles, share bomb-making instructions, and plan a Mojave Desert trip to test the explosive devices. FBI agents intervened as the suspects began assembling explosive components at their desert site, arresting all four before a functional device could be constructed.
“After an intense investigation, the Department of Justice, working with our @FBI, prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California (Orange County and Los Angeles),” Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X.
Agents recovered potassium nitrate, sulfur, charcoal powder, PVC pipes of various diameters, gasoline, primers, and fuse materials—components that FBI bomb technicians determined could be readily assembled into improvised explosive devices or Molotov cocktails.
The complaint further alleges that Carroll and Page discussed plans for follow-up attacks after New Year’s Eve, including potential pipe bomb attacks targeting ICE officers and vehicles “beginning in January or February 2026,” with Carroll noting “that would take some of them out and scare the rest of them.”
According to FBI director Kash Patel, a fifth individual believed to be linked to the same TIFF subgroup was arrested in New Orleans in connection with a separate, alleged attack.
Gaffield, meanwhile, served as president of the Associated Students of Cerritos College, the student government at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, a role in which he acted as an elected student body leader before his term ended earlier this year. He also served on the District Committee on Safety.
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