Woman is linked to terrorist plot

WASHINGTON — Using e-mail, YouTube videos, phony travel documents and a burning desire to kill "or die trying," a middle-aged American woman from Pennsylvania helped recruit a network for suicide attacks and other terrorist strikes in Europe and Asia, according to a federal grand-jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Colleen R. LaRose, who dubbed herself "Jihad Jane," was so intent on waging jihad, authorities said, that she traveled to Sweden to kill an artist in a way that would frighten "the whole Kufar (nonbeliever) world."

With blond hair and green eyes, the 46-year-old woman bragged that she could go anywhere undetected, allegedly boasting in one e-mail that it was "an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for" jihad.

"Only death will stop me here that I am so close to the target!" she boasted.

She did not kill the artist, however.

Across the ocean Tuesday, Irish police conducted morning raids in Cork and Waterford, arresting four men and three women who had been under electronic surveillance by U.S. and Swedish authorities.

The seven were suspected of plotting with LaRose to attack a Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, whose 2007 drawing of the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog enraged Muslims, according to Irish news accounts.

Mark Wilson, a lawyer for LaRose at the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, declined to comment.

LaRose has not yet been scheduled for an arraignment on the charges, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael Levy.

The path that LaRose, who is 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighs barely more than 100 pounds, may have taken to jihad remains murky.

Authorities said LaRose solicited funds for terrorist organizations, helped arrange phony passports and other travel records, and used the Internet to recruit women to kill in Europe and men in Asia.

LaRose was arrested Oct. 15 in Philadelphia, and the indictment against her was unsealed Tuesday.

Federal officials held her up as an example of how terrorists sometimes boldly operate inside the United States, fearless of the world watching them on the Internet.

"A woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists," said David Kris, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's National Security Division. That, he stressed, "underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face."

Levy said the case shows "the use terrorists can and do make" of communicating through e-mails and videos around the world." He called LaRose "yet another very real danger lurking on the Internet."

The other danger, authorities said, is that radical jihadists are increasingly turning to homegrown U.S. citizens to carry out their plots. "Terrorists are looking for Americans to join them in their cause," Levy said, adding that LaRose "shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance."

The indictment, which also mentioned but did not identify five unindicted co-conspirators, said LaRose first came to the attention of the FBI in June 2008 when she posted a comment on YouTube under the username "Jihad Jane."

She stated that she was "desperate to do something somehow to help" the suffering Muslim people.

By December of that year, she was e-mailing one of the conspirators of her desire to become a "shahed," or martyr.