LOS ANGELES -- The Animal Liberation Front took credit for leaving a "Molotov cocktail" outside the Bel-Air home of a UCLA primate researcher, but apparently hit the wrong house, an FBI official said Wednesday.

The ALF boasted in a statement that it had left a bottle filled with a flammable liquid on the porch of Lynn Fairbanks' home in Bel-Air on June 30.

But Laura Eimiller of the FBI said the bottle had actually been left at the home of one of Fairbanks' 70-year-old neighbors.

"According to arson investigators, they believe that, had the device functioned properly, the inhabitants would have had a very difficult time escaping," she said, adding the house is backed against a hillside.

The FBI is offering a reward up $10,000 for information leading to the culprit who left the would-be fire bomb at the house. The FBI can be reached at (310) 447-6565.

UCLA issued a statement blasting the ALF's action.

"UCLA strongly condemns this terrorist attack and deplores violence intended to injure people or damage property for any reason," the university statement said. "According to the FBI, the improvised incendiary device mistakenly was left on the doorstep of the faculty member's neighbor and could have caused serious injury, death or property damage had it functioned."

On its Web site, the ALF claimed Fairbanks was keeping vervet monkeys to study "psychological, psychiatric and social problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, substance abuse, criminality and violence."

University officials said that description "totally misrepresents" Fairbanks' work.