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Filed: Timeline
Posted

Pa. suspect: Caretaker by day, 'Jihad Jane' online

By MARYCLAIRE DALE (AP) – 1 hour ago

PHILADELPHIA — Colleen LaRose spent long days caring for her boyfriend's father in a second-floor apartment in Pennsburg, a small town north of Philadelphia.

But online, federal authorities say, the devoted caretaker developed a daring alter ego, refashioning herself as "Jihad Jane" while helping recruit and finance Muslim terrorists — and eventually moving overseas to try to kill an artist she perceived as an enemy to Islam.

LaRose, 46, was charged Tuesday with conspiring with jihadist fighters and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war, or jihad. The indictment was announced hours after authorities arrested seven suspected terrorists in Ireland allegedly linked to LaRose, who has been in prison since her Oct. 15 arrest while returning to the United States.

In e-mails recovered by the FBI over 15 months, LaRose agreed to marry an online contact from South Asia so he could move to Europe. She also agreed to become a martyr, the indictment said.

But perhaps she felt like one already.

Born in Michigan, LaRose moved to Texas as a girl and had married twice by age 24. Her first marriage came at 16, to a man twice her age in Tarrant County, Texas, public records show. There are no records or reports of any children from either union, both of which were long over by the time she met Pennsylvanian Kurt Gorman in 2005.

LaRose lived with Gorman and his father in Pennsburg, caring for the older man while Gorman worked at his family's small business in another town, Gorman said this week.

"She was a good-hearted person," he said Wednesday. "She pretty much stayed around the house."

But online, she grew increasingly devoted to a loose band of what authorities say were violent co-conspirators from around the world. They found her after she posted a YouTube video in June 2008 saying she was "desperate to do something somehow to help" ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said.

She eventually agreed to try to kill Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, according to a U.S. official who wasn't authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Despite Web images that show LaRose in a Muslim head covering, Gorman said he never picked up on any Muslim leanings. She never attended religious services of any kind, he said. Gorman, 47, sensed nothing amiss in their five-year relationship until the day after his father's funeral last August.

"I came home and she was gone. It doesn't make any sense," he said Wednesday outside his firm in nearby Quakertown.

That same day, LaRose had removed the hard drive from her computer and set off for Europe — federal authorities won't specify where. She had swiped Gorman's passport and planned to give it to the co-conspirator she had agreed to marry, the indictment said.

It's unclear how she was able to travel overseas, given that the FBI, presumably tipped to her online postings, had interviewed her July 17. According to the indictment, she denied soliciting funds for any terrorist causes or making the postings ascribed to "JihadJane."

By Sept. 30, she wrote online that it would be "an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for" her intended spouse, the indictment said. "Only death will stop me here that I am so close to the target!" she is accused of writing.

Her federal public defenders, Mark T. Wilson and Ross Thompson, declined to on the case again Wednesday.

Irish police disclosed, though, that they had arrested two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name.

"I'm glad she didn't kill me," Vilks told The Associated Press on Wednesday, saying the suspects appeared to be "low-tech." He said he has built defense systems in his home to thwart would-be terrorists, including a safe room and electrified barbed wire.

LaRose is scheduled to appear in court March 18 on the indictment, which was returned March 4 and unsealed Tuesday. The document does not link her to any organized terrorist groups.

She is unusual in being one of just a handful of U.S. women ever charged with terrorism, the Justice Department said. And her online conversations suggest she knew that to be an advantage — as she thought her blond, American profile would help her move freely in Sweden to carry out the attack, the indictment said.

The case "shatters the conventional wisdom that somehow the U.S. is immune to the heady currents of radicalization that have affected citizens of other Western countries," said Georgetown University professor Bruce Hoffman, an international securities expert.

LaRose lived in a tidy red brick apartment building on Main Street, a busy roadway lined with porch-front houses, many decorated with American flags, and a post office.

"It's a great place. A quiet little town," said Pennsburg real estate agent Debbie Turner. "But you never know who your neighbors are. You have to be careful."

LaRose had a few minor convictions in Texas in the 1980s for trespassing and other misdemeanors, according to online records, which list her then as 4 feet 11 and 105 pounds. She was also twice arrested in Texas on misdemeanor public intoxication charges.

"For all intents and purposes, she's the neighbor next door," said Hoffman, noting that the Internet enables like minds around the world to meet up, for better or worse.

"You could get all the thrills of participation in an illegal clandestine act in the comfort of your own bedroom," he said. "This is someone who, I think, because of the communicative power of the Internet is able to ... enter into something that is larger than herself."

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers JoAnn Loviglio in Pennsburg, Louise Nordstrom and Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Jeff Carlton in Dallas and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.

Filed: Timeline
Posted
Pa. suspect: Caretaker by day, 'Jihad Jane' online

By MARYCLAIRE DALE (AP) – 1 hour ago

PHILADELPHIA — Colleen LaRose spent long days caring for her boyfriend's father in a second-floor apartment in Pennsburg, a small town north of Philadelphia.

But online, federal authorities say, the devoted caretaker developed a daring alter ego, refashioning herself as "Jihad Jane" while helping recruit and finance Muslim terrorists — and eventually moving overseas to try to kill an artist she perceived as an enemy to Islam.

LaRose, 46, was charged Tuesday with conspiring with jihadist fighters and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war, or jihad. The indictment was announced hours after authorities arrested seven suspected terrorists in Ireland allegedly linked to LaRose, who has been in prison since her Oct. 15 arrest while returning to the United States.

In e-mails recovered by the FBI over 15 months, LaRose agreed to marry an online contact from South Asia so he could move to Europe. She also agreed to become a martyr, the indictment said.

But perhaps she felt like one already.

Born in Michigan, LaRose moved to Texas as a girl and had married twice by age 24. Her first marriage came at 16, to a man twice her age in Tarrant County, Texas, public records show. There are no records or reports of any children from either union, both of which were long over by the time she met Pennsylvanian Kurt Gorman in 2005.

LaRose lived with Gorman and his father in Pennsburg, caring for the older man while Gorman worked at his family's small business in another town, Gorman said this week.

"She was a good-hearted person," he said Wednesday. "She pretty much stayed around the house."

But online, she grew increasingly devoted to a loose band of what authorities say were violent co-conspirators from around the world. They found her after she posted a YouTube video in June 2008 saying she was "desperate to do something somehow to help" ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said.

She eventually agreed to try to kill Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, according to a U.S. official who wasn't authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Despite Web images that show LaRose in a Muslim head covering, Gorman said he never picked up on any Muslim leanings. She never attended religious services of any kind, he said. Gorman, 47, sensed nothing amiss in their five-year relationship until the day after his father's funeral last August.

"I came home and she was gone. It doesn't make any sense," he said Wednesday outside his firm in nearby Quakertown.

That same day, LaRose had removed the hard drive from her computer and set off for Europe — federal authorities won't specify where. She had swiped Gorman's passport and planned to give it to the co-conspirator she had agreed to marry, the indictment said.

It's unclear how she was able to travel overseas, given that the FBI, presumably tipped to her online postings, had interviewed her July 17. According to the indictment, she denied soliciting funds for any terrorist causes or making the postings ascribed to "JihadJane."

By Sept. 30, she wrote online that it would be "an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for" her intended spouse, the indictment said. "Only death will stop me here that I am so close to the target!" she is accused of writing.

Her federal public defenders, Mark T. Wilson and Ross Thompson, declined to on the case again Wednesday.

Irish police disclosed, though, that they had arrested two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name.

"I'm glad she didn't kill me," Vilks told The Associated Press on Wednesday, saying the suspects appeared to be "low-tech." He said he has built defense systems in his home to thwart would-be terrorists, including a safe room and electrified barbed wire.

LaRose is scheduled to appear in court March 18 on the indictment, which was returned March 4 and unsealed Tuesday. The document does not link her to any organized terrorist groups.

She is unusual in being one of just a handful of U.S. women ever charged with terrorism, the Justice Department said. And her online conversations suggest she knew that to be an advantage — as she thought her blond, American profile would help her move freely in Sweden to carry out the attack, the indictment said.

The case "shatters the conventional wisdom that somehow the U.S. is immune to the heady currents of radicalization that have affected citizens of other Western countries," said Georgetown University professor Bruce Hoffman, an international securities expert.

LaRose lived in a tidy red brick apartment building on Main Street, a busy roadway lined with porch-front houses, many decorated with American flags, and a post office.

"It's a great place. A quiet little town," said Pennsburg real estate agent Debbie Turner. "But you never know who your neighbors are. You have to be careful."

LaRose had a few minor convictions in Texas in the 1980s for trespassing and other misdemeanors, according to online records, which list her then as 4 feet 11 and 105 pounds. She was also twice arrested in Texas on misdemeanor public intoxication charges.

"For all intents and purposes, she's the neighbor next door," said Hoffman, noting that the Internet enables like minds around the world to meet up, for better or worse.

"You could get all the thrills of participation in an illegal clandestine act in the comfort of your own bedroom," he said. "This is someone who, I think, because of the communicative power of the Internet is able to ... enter into something that is larger than herself."

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers JoAnn Loviglio in Pennsburg, Louise Nordstrom and Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Jeff Carlton in Dallas and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.

And whats lovely is one of the other conspirators is an an American married to one of the Algerian suspects...

We wonder why we have AP and one year processing.. thanks to these freaks

Filed: Citizen (pnd) Country: Egypt
Timeline
Posted

Yeah, she had no idea about Islam... and just found some crazies on the internet who fed her a bunch of bull. Sigh...

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"The believers, in their love, mutual kindness, and close ties, are like one body; when any part complains, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever." [Muslim]

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." Henry David Thoreau

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Filed: Timeline
Posted
She's been taking bad advice... I wonder from whom?

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Apparently chatting on the internet.

They arrested a second American woman

Kamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31 was arrest in Ireland suspected in terrorism efforts with JihadJane, Collen R LaRose from Pennsylvania . The mother from Leadville Colorado was arrest on charges she was plotting to kill the cartoonist. who put Mohammed’s head on the body of a dog and attempting to recruit jihadis via the Internet.

This woman, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, abruptly took her 6 year old son and left for Ireland dressed up in her new religion’s garb. She had suddenly told her family she was now a Muslim. Her mother Christine Holcomb-Mott, said in an interview, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez's interest in Islam "came out of left field."

She was arrested in October and later charged with providing material support to terrorists. The Justice Department kept its case under wraps until this week while investigators in the U.S. and Europe pursued their investigation against other potential suspects in the U.S. and abroad.

The seven people in custody, whose ages range from the mid-20s to the late 40s, can be held for seven days without charges, under Irish law

This says alot about how some vulnerable women with too much time on their hands can be manipulated into almost anything. She married an Algerian and was petitioning for him.

This is not about islam. Its about being stuck on stupid and vulnerable and living your life online and then getting manipulated by terrorists...I am sure she did not set out to do this. She was manipulated into this. How many sleepers in the USA are well on their way to the same #######?

Filed: Timeline
Posted
Apparently chatting on the internet.

They arrested a second American woman

Kamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31 was arrest in Ireland suspected in terrorism efforts with JihadJane, Collen R LaRose from Pennsylvania . The mother from Leadville Colorado was arrest on charges she was plotting to kill the cartoonist. who put Mohammed’s head on the body of a dog and attempting to recruit jihadis via the Internet.

This woman, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, abruptly took her 6 year old son and left for Ireland dressed up in her new religion’s garb. She had suddenly told her family she was now a Muslim. Her mother Christine Holcomb-Mott, said in an interview, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez's interest in Islam "came out of left field."

She was arrested in October and later charged with providing material support to terrorists. The Justice Department kept its case under wraps until this week while investigators in the U.S. and Europe pursued their investigation against other potential suspects in the U.S. and abroad.

The seven people in custody, whose ages range from the mid-20s to the late 40s, can be held for seven days without charges, under Irish law

This says alot about how some vulnerable women with too much time on their hands can be manipulated into almost anything. She married an Algerian and was petitioning for him.

This is not about islam. Its about being stuck on stupid and vulnerable and living your life online and then getting manipulated by terrorists...I am sure she did not set out to do this. She was manipulated into this. How many sleepers in the USA are well on their way to the same #######?

Another article about this small town American mom

Last Easter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old mom with a $30,000-a-year job as a medical assistant, announced to her family that she had converted to Islam. A few months later, she began posting to Facebook forums whose headings included "STOP caLLing MUSLIMS TERRORISTS!"

On Sept. 11, she suddenly left Leadville, Colo., a small town in the Rocky Mountains, with her 6-year-old son for Denver, then for New York, to meet and marry an Algerian man she connected with online, her family says. Paulin-Ramirez, who is 5-foot-11 and blonde, phoned her mother and stepfather in Leadville, providing them with an address in Waterford, Ireland, they say.

Now, she is in the custody of the Irish police, along with three other individuals, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit murder, according to officials familiar with the case. The nature of the authorities' suspicions about Paulin-Ramirez couldn't be determined on Friday.

Irish authorities this week announced the arrest of seven Muslims in the alleged plot, only identifying them as three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerians.

Irish police said Saturday three Muslims arrested in the case were freed without charge, but three men and an American woman remain in custody.

Paulin-Ramirez's interest in Islam "came out of left field," said her mother, Christine Holcomb, in an interview at her home Friday, wearing a blue sweatsuit with a silver cross around her neck.

"I'm angry with her right now," Holcomb said. "I'd like to just choke her. But I'm worried about her, too. I love my daughter."

Holcomb learned about the arrest of her daughter in the case by the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

She said she's also concerned for the welfare of her grandson, who has been placed in the custody of Ireland's foster care system.

"This is about my baby," Holcomb said. "We need some help to get this baby back. I'm concerned about my daughter but I'm concerned about our baby boy because he shouldn't be caught in the middle of this."

Holcom said Paulin-Ramirez announced to her family last spring that she was converting to Islam and began wearing headscarves, and later a hajib.

Related Stories•Boyfriend: Terror Suspect Never Practiced Religion

•Pennsylvania Woman Charged With Recruiting Violent Jihadist Fighters

"It came out of left field," Christine Mott said. "I knew she was talking to these people online... What caused her to turn her back on her country, on her family and become this person? I don't know how or why. All I know is she was in contact with this Jihad Jane."

"The only thing I could think of is that they brainwashed her."

Paulin-Ramirez's stepfather, George Mott, said the FBI seized a desktop computer in late September but did not tell the family what they found.

Paulin-Ramirez is the second American woman to be linked to an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed. An indictment was unsealed this week against Colleen R. LaRose, 46, a suburban Philadelphia woman who authorities said used the Web alias "JihadJane."

LaRose was accused of plotting to kill the cartoonist and attempting to recruit jihadis via the Internet. She was arrested in October and later charged with providing material support to terrorists. The Justice Department kept its case under wraps until this week while investigators in the U.S. and Europe pursued their investigation against other potential suspects in the U.S. and abroad.

The main contact for LaRose is believed to be one of the men in Irish custody, an Algerian, who has a relationship with Paulin-Ramirez, according to a person close to matter.

Filed: Citizen (apr) Country: Morocco
Timeline
Posted

This story just keeps getting strange....a few bad apples are what starts the pot.

Casandra and Aziz's Timeline
03/26/07 - Received my first call from Aziz
07/21/07 - 1st trip
12/14/07 - 2nd visit to Morocco
05/20/08 - 3rd visit to Morocco
07/10/08 - Married in Morocco
02/15/09 - 4th trip to Morocco

05/12/12 - 1st trip to Morocco together

CR1 Visa Journey
10/06/08 - Sent I-130 Packet
10/09/08 - Received NOA1
04/24/09 - Approval Notice Sent for I-130
07/13/09 - Informed by NVC Casa consulate busy***wait for September interview
07/27/09 - Received appointment letter from NVC WOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
09/14/09 - CR1 interview in Casa @ 8:00 am ******APPROVED******
09/15/09 - Visa in Hand
11/07/09 - Travel to US
11/27/09 - Received greencard
ROC
10/21/11 - Sent I-751 package
10/24/11 - USCIS receives the package
10/31/11 - NOA1 received
11/18/11 - Biometrics Interview in JAX
06/27/12 - Approval Notice sent

N-400

09/21/13 - Application filed

09/26/13 - NOA received

10/24/13 - Biometics apt

12/12/13 - Interview date

01/01/14 - Approval notice sent

03/27/14 - Oath ceremony

Filed: Other Country: Israel
Timeline
Posted

Nothing about this surprises me. The ####### that converts get off the Internet is pretty convincing. Some of the stuff reinforced on this board about Islam only confirms that many converts are being Ill served by poor scholarship, self-appointed pseudo "authorities" and Internet fatwas that people post as evidence of what is haram or halal not knowing that even legimate fatwas aren't binding everywhere or on every Muslim. As an old school Muslim, such naivete is starling and dismaying.

I'm sure there are many more like her.

  • 2 weeks later...
Filed: Timeline
Posted

Nothing about this surprises me. The ####### that converts get off the Internet is pretty convincing. Some of the stuff reinforced on this board about Islam only confirms that many converts are being Ill served by poor scholarship, self-appointed pseudo "authorities" and Internet fatwas that people post as evidence of what is haram or halal not knowing that even legimate fatwas aren't binding everywhere or on every Muslim. As an old school Muslim, such naivete is starling and dismaying.

I'm sure there are many more like her.

Apparently from recent reports, she met a guy in the Netherlands that made her feel special and that led to her reversion. I dont think fatwas incited all of this, I think she wanted adventure and approval from some guy who fed her #######. I absolutely dont think half of these women really even knew what they were doing. They were bored and wanted to have some kind of perversely gotten "exciting life".

 
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