Pennsylvania Woman Tied to Plot on Cartoonist
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/us/10pennsylvania.html?ref=us
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: March 9, 2010
WASHINGTON — A Pennsylvania woman who called herself JihadJane was tied Tuesday to an alleged assassination plot against a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the prophet Muhammad atop the body of a dog.
WPVI-TV, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Colleen R. LaRose
In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, federal prosecutors accused Colleen R. LaRose, an American from the suburbs of Philadelphia, of linking up through the Internet with militants overseas and plotting to carry out a murder.
Ms. LaRose, 46, was arrested in Philadelphia in October, but her case was kept under seal. Although the indictment does not identify the target, a law enforcement official said her case was linked to the arrests Tuesday of seven Muslims in Ireland in connection with a scheme to kill the cartoonist, Lars Vilks. A group linked to Al Qaeda had put a $100,000 bounty on his head for the cartoon, which the group perceived as an insult to Islam.
European news reports said the Irish police, who arrested the four men and three women in Cork and Waterford, had coordinated the operation with the United States. A Justice Department spokesman would not confirm whether Ms. LaRose had been involved with the Irish assassination plot.
Mark T. Wilson and Rossman D. Thompson, federal public defenders in Philadelphia who are representing Ms. LaRose, declined to comment.
She is one of just a handful of women charged in the United States with terrorism offenses in recent years. Michael L. Levy, the United States attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, said in a statement the case illustrated how terrorists were looking for American recruits who could blend in. “It shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance,” he said.
Ms. LaRose is white, with blond hair and green eyes, according to the law enforcement official, who was not authorized to share details of the case and spoke only on the condition of anonymity. The official said Ms. LaRose was born in Michigan and later lived in Texas and Montgomery County, Pa.
The indictment said that in mid-2008, Ms. LaRose, using the aliases JihadJane and Fatima LaRose, began posting on YouTube and other Internet sites messages about her desire to help Muslims. By early 2009, the court papers said, she was exchanging e-mail messages with unidentified co-conspirators in Southeast Asia and Europe and expressed a desire to become a martyr for an Islamist cause.
The indictment refers to e-mail messages in which a conspirator, citing how Ms. LaRose’s appearance and American passport would make it easier for her to operate undetected, allegedly directed her in March 2009 to go to Sweden to help carry out a murder. She agreed to do so, writing, “I will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying,” the indictment says. She and another unnamed American later posted online solicitations for money for that project, the document said.
Ms. LaRose had attracted the government’s attention by then, the indictment said. She was questioned by F.B.I. agents on July 17, 2009, and falsely told them that she had never solicited money online for terrorism, had never used the alias JihadJane and had never made postings on a terrorist Web site, the court papers say. She is also charged with making false statements.
Despite drawing the F.B.I.’s attention, the indictment says Ms. LaRose traveled to Europe in August, joined an online community hosted by the intended Swedish victim in September and performed online searches to track him. She apparently never attempted to carry out the killing.
The indictment also says Ms. LaRose recruited other people on the Internet to wage or support jihadist attacks. It does not say whether any of them attempted to carry out an operation.
A Myspace profile for a woman who lives in Pennsylvania, matches Ms. LaRose’s age, and refers to herself as “JihadJane” displays numerous pictures of bloodshed and violence in the Middle East scrawled with messages like, “Palestine We Are With You” and “Sympathize With Gaza.” The woman, apparently Ms. LaRose, is shown in several different pictures wearing a burka.
She describes herself on her profile as originally from Texas, a recent convert to Islam, and says it is her dream “to live in an Islamic country where I will be free to live a good life.”
“I can safely say that of all the things I have ever done in my lifetime, becoming Muslim is what I am the proudest of,” she writes on the profile. “I have met so many Brothers & Sisters that have helped me in many ways learn to be a good Muslim.”
She adds, “I support all the Mujahideen I hate zionist & all that support them!”
Records show that before moving to Pennsylvania, Ms. LaRose lived in several different towns in Texas, including Corpus Christi and San Angelo, where she had a minor criminal record that included a charge for theft.
In Pennsburg, Ms. LaRose lived in a two-story home with a well-manicured lawn along a quiet section of Main Street. Several neighbors, including one who lives three doors down from the home, said they had heard Ms. LaRose’s name in the news on Tuesday but could not recall ever meeting or seeing her.
“You don’t expect to see that in this kind of town,” Michael Allem, a neighbor, said of the alleged murder plot. “But I’ve never really seen this person. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone even dressed like a Muslim in this town.”
