LOS ANGELES, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Four people accused of plotting New Year's Eve bombings in California have been arrested, U.S. authorities said Monday.

After an intense investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice, working with the FBI, "prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California (Orange County and Los Angeles)," U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X.

According to Bondi, the arrested are members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), which she described as "a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group."

The group was preparing to conduct a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year's Eve and also planned to target agents and vehicles with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Bondi noted.

"Over the weekend, the FBI disrupted a credible, imminent terrorist threat and arrested four individuals connected to the Los Angeles area," FBI Director Kash Patel said on X.

"The subjects self-identified as members of a radical offshoot of the Turtle Island Liberation Front" were allegedly planning coordinated IED (improvised explosive device) bombing attacks on New Year's Eve, targeting five separate locations across Los Angeles, Patel stated.

The FBI in New Orleans also arrested a fifth individual believed to be linked to the group for allegedly planning a separate violent attack, the FBI director added.

TILF describes itself on Facebook as an organization that seeks "liberation of occupied Turtle Island and liberation of all colonized people across the world."

U.S. federal and local officials disclosed the identities and ages of the four suspects during a news conference Monday morning, confirming that all are from the Los Angeles area. The suspects face multiple charges, including conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device.

Providing more details on the arrests, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office Akil Davis said the four were arrested near Twentynine Palms, a desert city in Southern California's Mojave Desert, on Friday "while they planned and rehearsed their attack," local media reported.

"The subjects arrested envisioned planting backpacks with improvised explosive devices to be detonated at multiple locations in Southern California targeting U.S. companies," Davis was quoted as saying, adding that the bombs were to blow up at the same time at midnight this New Year's Eve. Enditem