ELF took responsibility for the Michigan State fire, as well as a February attack on a genetic-engineering project at the University of Minnesota. A frequent target of such groups are mink ranches and companies that manufacture food for caged animals en route to becoming fashion statements. In federal court in Salt Lake City last week, two brothers were sentenced to five and six years in prison for a 1997 pipe bomb attack on the Fur Breeders Cooperative in Sandy, Utah. Neither ALF nor ELF has a public leader, but each communicates through a spokesman who claims to obtain information via anonymous e-mails. Mr. Rosebraugh also was called to testify before a grand jury, which he refused to do, citing his constitutional rights against self-incrimination.
Officials acknowledge the recent increase in such attacks.
Finding and prosecuting the attackers is another matter, however. Typically, they operate in small groups with names like the Strawberry Liberation Front and Seeds of Resistance, blending back into the alternative youth culture and an anarchist movement that eschews hierarchical organization. Ironically, this is similar to the way militant radicals operate at the other end of the political spectrum - the Timothy McVeighs of the militia movement. But other groups say they'll attack people as well as property. We do not.