"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 bombing plot called for planting explosive devices at five locations targeting two US companies at midnight on New Year's Eve in the Los Angeles area, it said.
The four defendants named in the complaint are Audrey Illeene Carroll, Zachary Aaron Page, Dante Gaffield and Tina Lai.
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, which included them "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 sworn statement alleges.
FBI agents intervened, however, before they could complete their work to assemble a functional explosive device.
The Turtle Island Liberation Front - LA Chapter is described on its social media page as being devoted to "Liberation through decolonisation and tribal sovereignty," according to the complaint, which alleges the group is "an anti-capitalist, anti-government movement".
The complaint said the four defendants were all part of a Signal group chat called "Order of the Black Lotus," which one of them described as being "radical".
In addition to allegedly plotting to set bombs on New Year's Eve, the group also discussed going after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs in January or February, the complaint said, with Carroll allegedly saying: "That would take some of them out and scare the rest of them."
Bill Essayli, who leads the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, said during a press conference he expects prosecutors will be filing more charges in the coming weeks as investigators review the evidence.
All four of the defendants were arrested on December 12, he added.
He declined to say which companies were targeted by the group, saying only generally they were "Amazon-type logistics centres".
Officials played surveillance footage obtained by the FBI at the press conference that showed people placing what they described as precursor chemicals and other bomb-making materials onto a table out in the desert.
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