Radical Group Claims It Firebombed Corral

RENO â€”  A radical environmental group is claiming responsibility for firebombing a federal corral near Susanville, Calif., to protest government roundups of wild horses. The FBI said it is giving the claim “very serious consideration.â€�

The Earth Liberation Front said in a communique released by another group that it set firebombs at a Bureau of Land Management wild horse corral near the California-Nevada border.

The communique was released by a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front.

The Earth Liberation Front statement said it set “four timed incendiary devices aimed at destroying two barns, two vehicles and one office building� at a BLM wild horse holding facility.

The action was taken “in opposition to the Bureau of Land Management’s continued war against the Earth,� a copy of the message said.

“For years, the BLM has rounded up thousands of wild horses and burros to clear public land for grazing cattle. . . . In the name of all that is wild we will continue to target industries and organizations that seek to profit by destroying the Earth.�

One of four firebombs with timing devices started a fire that destroyed a barn full of hay, causing $85,000 damage Oct. 15 at the BLM’s Litchfield horse facility about 80 miles north of Reno near Susanville. No one was injured.

The communique, however, contained some inaccuracies in describing the incident. It said the Earth Liberation Front attacked the BLM’s “wild horse holding facility in Corvallis, Calif., on October 17th, 2001.� The date was wrong, and there is no Corvallis, Calif. The BLM said it has no facility in Corvallis, Ore. Otherwise, the information is consistent with the attack at the Litchfield corral Oct. 15.

Bomb squads were able to disarm three of the incendiary devices at the corral before they went off. The horses were far from the bombs and not in any danger. None escaped, the BLM said.

The BLM estimates 48,000 wild horses and burros are running free across parts of 10 Western states, about half of them in Nevada.

Last year the agency rounded up an estimated 7,000 wild horses, but agency officials said earlier this year that the population is too large for the range to sustain and that they’d like to pare it nearly in half by 2005.