Straits Times 12 Mar 08;
Attacks by radical Earth Liberation Front have led to costly damage
LONDON - ELVES are emerging as rivals to Islamic militants as a security nightmare in the United States following a recent spate of arson attacks.
Members of the Earth Liberation Front - or ELF for short - have been accused in recent days of causing US$7 million (S$9.7 million) damage by firebombing a luxury housing development in Seattle.
That, and the conviction last week of a 32-year-old violin teacher accused of destroying a University of Washington research facility, have raised concerns that the US could eventually face a greater threat from radical anti-global-warming activists than from radical Islamists, the Times of London reported yesterday.
While Al-Qaeda is notable for the devastation of the Sept 11 attacks, killing over 2,000 people and bringing down the World Trade Center, Islamic militant groups have not been able to follow up with more attacks, even on a smaller scale.
In contrast, according to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, ELF has been responsible for more than 1,200 criminal acts in the US, with the cost of its sabotage close to US$100 million, said the Times report.
Some estimates put the figure at twice that amount.
As early as 2002 the FBI named ELF the largest and most active US-based terrorist organisation, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reported.
ELF was formed in 1992 by disaffected members of Britain's law-abiding Earth First! group and is described as operating as a decentralised Al-Qaeda-style network.
It was designed to function under the same leaderless, hard-to-prosecute, resistance-style principles as the Animal Liberation Front in Britain, which also engaged in direct action and sabotage.
Within two years, shadowy ELF 'cells' - resembling those through which Al-Qaeda organises its attacks - had emerged in continental Europe and, by the mid-1990s, had spread to Canada and the US.
In 2003, during its last spate of attacks, the group - whose members are known unofficially as elves - organised a campaign of firebombings at a string of US West Coast SUV car dealerships, dubbed the 'Hummer bombings', and carried out a US$50 million arson attack on a new apartment building in San Diego.
Before then, in 1998, it carried out the US$12 million firebombing of the upmarket Vail ski resort in Colorado.
The FBI says that only luck has prevented anyone being killed in ELF attacks so far.
A string of prosecutions followed, but experts say the group may be on the rise again with the renewed focus on green issues and climate change.
The 'Street of Dreams' blaze last week in Seattle sends a message that the movement is not crippled, Professor Gary Perlstein, professor emeritus in administration of justice at Portland State University, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It may just have taken time for new ELF activists to crop up.
The so-called Street of Dreams housing development - 48 luxury 'ecohomes' being built near wetlands in Seattle and close to a creek in which an endangered species of salmon is found - was designed to showcase green materials and technologies such as recycled wood and superinsulation. The homes were priced at up to nearly US$2 million each.
Last week, five were destroyed by fire in an attack blamed on ELF. Critics had opposed the wetlands location of the homes. A banner was found near the houses featuring an anti-development message along with the ELF initials.
'Built green? Nope. Black. McMansions in RCDs r not green. ELF,' the sign read.
RCD may be a reference to 'rural cluster developments', a type of project in which homes are built close together on rural land to preserve open space.
Last week also saw the conviction of an alleged ELF member who helped to destroy a US$7million University of Washington research facility in 2001.
'This is more than an environmental issue to them, this is an issue of faith,' said Prof Perlstein.
