In the News
After the FBI foiled credible terror threats motivated by anti-government, pro-Palestinian ideology and planned for Los Angeles and New Orleans, B’nai B’rith International CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin told JNS that the thwarted plot shows how incitement can fuel real-world violence.
“They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb,” the U.S. Justice Department said. “We disrupted this terror plot before buildings were demolished or innocent people were killed.”
Federal agents arrested five members of an extremist, pro-Palestinian group who were plotting to carry out coordinated bombing attacks in Los Angeles and New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, FBI director Kash Patel said on Monday.
“They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb,” Bill Essayli, assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said at a press conference on Monday. “We disrupted this terror plot before buildings were demolished or innocent people were killed.”
Essayli added that the defendants aimed to detonate “complex pipe bombs” at “multiple companies” at the same time. They also sought to conduct the attacks without leaving a trace, he said.
The Justice Department named the defendants, all from the Los Angeles area, as Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. All were also part of a group called the Order of the Black Lotus. At the home of one of the defendants was a sign stating “long live Palestine,” Essayli said.
Patel, the FBI director, stated that “the subjects self-identified as members of a radical offshoot of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, an extremist group motivated by pro-Palestinian, anti-law-enforcement and anti-government ideology.”
Some Native Americans and others use “Turtle Island” to refer to the North American continent.
“They were allegedly planning coordinated IED bombing attacks on New Year’s Eve, targeting five separate locations across Los Angeles,” Patel stated. “In the days since, the FBI in New Orleans arrested an additional fifth individual believed to be linked to this radical Turtle Island Liberation Front subgroup, also allegedly planning a separate violent attack.”
Patel described the New Year’s Eve terrorist threat as “credible” and “imminent.”
According to the Justice Department, Carroll gave the other three co-conspirators an “eight-page handwritten document titled ‘Operation Midnight Sun’” in November 2025. “The plan called for backpacks with bombs to be simultaneously detonated at five or more locations targeting two U.S. companies at midnight this New Year’s Eve in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area,” the department stated.
The four “took numerous steps toward executing the bombing plot, including acquiring bomb-making materials and traveling to a remote location in the Mojave Desert to construct and detonate test bombs on Dec. 12,” the department said.
In the desert, they “took steps to begin construction of the devices, including unloading the bomb-making materials from their cars and beginning to assemble the materials on a table,” per the Justice Department. “They also constructed a tent to keep the bomb materials shaded from the sun, wiped down the interior of one of the pipes used for the bombs and Carroll discussed grinding a precursor for use in an explosive powder.”
At that point, FBI agents arrested them “before they completed assembling a functional bomb,” it said.
It added that each defendant faces up to 15 years in jail.
Joey Good, senior director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Orange County, told JNS that the thwarted bombing “comes as Jews are being targeted again and again—from Redlands, Calif., to Sydney.”
“These incidents are not isolated. They are part of a clear and accelerating surge in antisemitism,” he said. “We are grateful to law enforcement for preventing further harm and remain focused on protecting our community and ensuring Jewish life can continue openly and without fear.”
Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS that the attempted bombings are “yet another example of how sowing incitement can reap violent outcomes.”
“That this group mixed its pro-Palestinian persona with an anti-U.S. agenda shows how deeply connected both narratives are right here in our own country,” he said, and “how fortunate we are that the FBI interdicted this plot.”
There is still a question “how much more of this kind of activity is out there, feeding off the freewheeling hatred which spews untrammeled on social and mainstream media, in academia and in street demonstrations in cities across the country, he told JNS.
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