However, before federal prosecutors filed charges against several of the group’s members this week, the Turtle Island Liberation Front remained relatively unknown to the public.

What is the Turtle Island Liberation Front?

The group is an anti-capitalist cohort formed against “fascist colonizers.” 

The Turtle Island Liberation Front takes its name from an indigenous moniker for North America, a reference to the Turtle Island creation story, which is a Native American oral history of how the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.

Seeking “liberation through decolonization and tribal sovereignty,” the group’s stated objective is to free “occupied” Turtle Island from the “illegal American empire.”

Turtle Island Liberation Front’s objective and allies

“Defect from America, become citizens of Turtle Island,” the group tells its base. “Have loyalty to the tribes of this land. Call for land back. F**k ‘America.’”

Indigenous and pro-Palestinian activists alike have rallied together under the banner of reclaiming their land, seeing both Turtle Island and Palestinian territory as stolen by settlers. Activists in the Land Back movement believe that Israel is a colonial state that has displaced native Palestinians from their homeland, similar to how New World settlers colonized the Americas.

On social media, the group publishes flash fiction about indigenous-Palestinian solidarity.

“Mourning that crossed oceans and centuries. Two peoples. Two wounds. Different bloodlines. One empire. One grief. Same chains,” the group’s organizers wrote in collaboration with Tunnel EDU, an underground school of Marxist revolutionaries teaching “armed resistance” and “intifada until liberation.”

“Free Palestine. Free Hawaii. Free Puerto Rico,” the group’s Los Angeles cell posted on Instagram. “Freeing the world from American imperialism is the only way to a safe and peaceful future.”

To achieve this, the Turtle Island Liberation Front says, “Peaceful Protest Will Never Be Enough,” instructing its followers to “stop marching in parades, fight back.”

Following the nationwide “No Kings” protests organized against President Donald Trump’s administration, the Turtle Island Liberation Front campaigned to recruit anti-Trump activists, or people disenchanted by the left-wing movement’s lack of effectiveness, who are open to “violent options.”

The Turtle Island Liberation Front is allied with the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation, which extremism watchdogs have flagged for promoting anti-Israel propaganda, supporting antisemitic violence, and spreading messaging from terrorist groups.

Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation circulates Hamas content, including statements that endorse the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack against Israeli civilians, and regularly glorifies Hamas military spokesman Abu Obaida, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In late November, the Turtle Island Liberation Front “embraced the return of our comrades at DAMPL,” adding, “Free Palestine or scorch the earth.”

Researchers within George Washington University’s program on extremism warned in a September report that the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation is an emerging domestic extremist group that has rapidly escalated from online mobilization to acts of vandalism, intimidation, and attempted incendiary attacks. 

“DAMPL illustrates how foreign conflicts can catalyze homegrown militancy within the United States,” the report says.

Federal charges filed against alleged Turtle Island Liberation Front members

After an “intense” investigation into the Turtle Island Liberation Front’s alleged activities, the Department of Justice prevented what would have been “a massive and horrific terror plot” in Orange County and the Los Angeles area, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Monday.

Four Turtle Island Liberation Front members, including Audrey “Asiginaak” Carroll, Dante “Nomad” Garfield, Zachary “AK” Page, and Tina “Kickwhere” Lai, were arrested over the weekend and charged with conspiracy and possession of a destructive device for their alleged involvement in the now-thwarted bombings, according to a criminal complaint.

The four activists, all using aliases, were apprehended in Lucerne Valley, a desert city, and the suspected testing site for the improvised explosive devices. Court filings say they set their sights on five locations, identified as “marks,” across Los Angeles, with more targets possible “if enough comrades” assembled.

Evidence photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite and what appears to be bomb-making materials.

The suspects “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 charging documents say.

Investigators said they found pro-Palestinian posters associated with the Turtle Island Liberation Front in Carroll’s residence and a copy of the attack plan, dubbed “Operation Midnight Sun,” in Page’s home.

The handwritten plan allegedly described multiple operational security measures that the co-conspirators were told to take to conceal their identities, such as the use of a burner phone that would be disposed of after the bombings by “submerging it in a concrete brick after destroying the SIM and then disposing of the brick in a body of water.” In addition to a plan of action, according to the federal affidavit, step-by-step instructions were discovered detailing how to build a pipe bomb and create homemade gunpowder.

New Year’s Eve, the target date of the operation, was picked as an opportune time because “fireworks will be going off at this time so explosions will be less likely to be noticed as immediately as any normal day,” according to the plan’s outline.

DOJ THWARTS ‘HORRIFIC’ NEW YEAR’S EVE TERRORIST PLOT IN LA BY LEFT-WING, PRO-PALESTINIAN GROUP

A fifth individual believed to be connected to the Turtle Island Liberation Front was nabbed in New Orleans for allegedly planning a separate attack.

“We will continue to pursue these terror groups and bring them to justice,” Bondi said.