 It is now an international organization with actions reported in 17 countries and is widely regarded as descending from Animal Liberation Front because of the relationship and cooperation between the two movements.Using the same leaderless resistance model, as well as similar guidelines to the ALF, sympathizers say that it is an eco-defense group dedicated to taking the profit motive out of environmental destruction by causing economic damage to businesses through the use of property damage.The ELF was classified as the top "domestic terror" threat in the United States by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March 2001, and its members classified as eco-terrorists.