Left-Wing Terrorism Returns: The Turtle Island Liberation Front Plot

According to Donald Trump’s Justice Department, a left-wing terrorist cell calling itself the “Turtle Island Liberation Front” was in the final preparatory stages of what could have been a horrific bombing campaign. What is “Turtle Island” and who must it be liberated from, you ask? That’s the name radical “indigenous” activist groups give the whole of the North American continent — a moniker supposedly derived from a Lenape (Delaware) creationist myth. Turtle Island’s occupiers are, well, all of us.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called Turtle Island a “far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist” organization. None of this is as contradictory as it may sound to rational observers. The potentially violent talk themselves into a variety of rationales for political violence, and many of them subscribe to what the FBI refers to as “salad bar” terrorism. In short, the addled and violently inclined cobble their own bespoke blend of ideologies together to craft an extremist doctrine that justifies the violence to which they were already inclined.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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According to Donald Trump’s Justice Department, a left-wing terrorist cell calling itself the “Turtle Island Liberation Front” was in the final preparatory stages of what could have been a horrific bombing campaign. What is “Turtle Island” and who must it be liberated from, you ask? That’s the name radical “indigenous” activist groups give the whole of the North American continent — a moniker supposedly derived from a Lenape (Delaware) creationist myth. Turtle Island’s occupiers are, well, all of us.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called Turtle Island a “far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist” organization. None of this is as contradictory as it may sound to rational observers. The potentially violent talk themselves into a variety of rationales for political violence, and many of them subscribe to what the FBI refers to as “salad bar” terrorism. In short, the addled and violently inclined cobble their own bespoke blend of ideologies together to craft an extremist doctrine that justifies the violence to which they were already inclined.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.