New Year's Eve bomb plot in California foiled, US authorities say

A New Year’s Eve terror plot to bomb five sites in California and attack immigration agents has been thwarted, US authorities say.

Less than two days after the mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, the US attorney-general said a “massive and horrific” attack had been prevented in Los Angeles.

“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,” Pam Bondi posted on X.

“The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles.”

Four people were arrested last week, FBI director Kash Patel said. They “self-identified as members of a radical offshoot” of the group, he said.

The suspects were arrested in Lucerne Valley, a desert city east of LA, according to court documents.

Evidence photos included in the court documents showed 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 court complaint said.

‘Operation Midnight Sun’

The four defendants named in the court complaint are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30, Zachary Aaron Page, 32, Dante Gaffield, 24, and 41-year-old Tina Lai.

The bomb plot was allegedly outlined in an eight-page handwritten document called “Operation Midnight Sun”. Ms Carroll gave the document to an unnamed source, who provided it to law enforcement officers, according to the court documents.

Ms Carroll and Mr Page allegedly recruited the other two defendants to help carry out the plan, which included “acquiring bomb-making materials and travelling to a remote location in the Mojave Desert to construct and detonate test explosive devices on December 12, 2025”, the court documents say.

FBI agents intervened before they could finish building a functional explosive device.

The “Turtle Island Liberation Front — LA Chapter” described itself online as being devoted to “liberation through decolonisation and tribal sovereignty”, according to the court complaint.

It said the four defendants were all part of a Signal group chat called “Order of the Black Lotus”.

The group also discussed going after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and vehicles with pipe bombs in January or February, the complaint said. Ms Carroll allegedly said: “That would take some of them out and scare the rest of them.”

The four individuals have been charged with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device.

A fifth person, who was arrested later, was planning a “separate violent attack”, Mr Patel said. That person was also linked to the Turtle Island Liberation Front, he said.

Ms Bondi recently ordered law enforcement agents to ramp up investigations into “extremist” groups with leftist-leaning agendas.

New York responds to Sydney attack

On the other side of the US, New York authorities said they had been surging counter-terrorism officers into the city to secure Hanukkah celebrations in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack.

New York City is home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and will host a range of public events for the eight-day Hanukkah festival.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has “significantly increased security” at those events “out of an abundance of caution”, police commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

“I am going to be blunt: this is not an isolated incident,” she said of the Sydney attack.

“It is part of a wider assault on Jewish life.

“Jewish communities are being forced to confront a threat that is persistent, adaptive and, as is evident yet again today, global in scope.”