Aryan Republican Army Aryan Republican Army The Aryan Republican Army (ARA), also dubbed "The Midwest Bank bandits" by the FBI and law-enforcement, robbed a series of 22 banks in the Midwest from 1994 to 1996 spearheaded by frontman Peter Kevin Langan. The gang who had links to neo-nazism and white supremacism, were alleged to have conspired with convicted terrorist Timothy McVeigh in the months before the Oklahoma City bombing terrorist attack. Although never legally acknowledged, many theorists believe the ARA funneled robbery money to help fund the bombing as a direct response to the Waco and Ruby Ridge sieges. The ARA group, created
Oklahoma City bombing of the bombing, the national media focused on the fact that 19 of the victims had been babies and children, many in the day-care center. At the time of the bombing, there were 100 day-care centers in the United States in 7,900 federal buildings. McVeigh later stated that he was unaware of the day-care center when choosing the building as a target, and if he had known "... it might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage." The FBI stated that McVeigh scouted the interior of the building in December 1994 and likely