Wall Street Journal, 12 March 2010: 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, for Denver, then for New York, to meet and marry a Muslim man she connected with online, her family says. Ms. 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 six 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 Ms. Paulin-Ramirez couldn’t be determined on Friday.
Ms. Paulin-Ramirez’s interest in Islam “came out of left field,” said her mother, Christine Holcomb-Mott . . . In the months before Ms. Paulin-Ramirez left Leadville, taking her 6-year-old son but little clothing or other belongings, she began “wearing the black garb so you can only see her eyes,” her aunt said. “We knew that she was dabbling in the Muslim religion. But for her to disappear like this was from left field—we weren’t expecting it at all,” said Ms. Jones, who until last fall would speak to her niece on the phone almost every day. Ms. Paulin-Ramirez had begun spending more time on the computer, her mother complained to the aunt. “All of a sudden, she stopped talking to me and she disappeared,” Ms. Jones said. . . .
. . . . Ms. Paulin-Ramirez had married several times over the years—some of her relatives estimated she was married four times. Her aunt Ms. Jones said she had expressed an interest in Christianity, and had asked to borrow or have her grandmother’s bible. In 2008 or 2009, Mr. Mott said, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez enrolled in an online course about Islam.By Easter 2009, she had informed her mother that she was a Muslim. At her father’s May 2009 funeral in Kansas, her aunts had to plead with her not to cover her head and hair with a hijab.
Over the summer, her family says, she was spending increasing time on the computer and had begun to dress in the traditional garb, covering not only her hair and face but also her hands. Her current Facebook page lists her as Jamie Paulin, with a photo in which all that is visible are her eyes peering from slits in her full-face veil.
Last year, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez had told her aunt she wanted to study to become a doctor, and she signed up for nurse-practitioner courses. She took out new student loans of roughly $3,000 last fall, according to her mother and stepfather. Her mother now believes she used that money to get to Ireland. . . . .
. . . A few months before she disappeared, her stepfather says he confronted her: “What are you going to do, strap a bomb on and blow up something?” he asked her. He recalled that she responded: “If necessary, yes.” . . . .
Mom says daughter held in Ireland in terror plot (AP, 14 March 2010)
‘Jihad Jamie’ is second white U.S. woman arrested over plot to kill Swedish cartoonist (Daily Mail, 15 March 2010)
American Linked to Terror Plot Brainwashed 6-Year-Old Son, Family Says (New York Post, 14 March 2010)
. . . . The terror mom’s stepfather, George Mott, said he talked by phone once with the boy at the school and the boy said: “We are building pipes [pipe bombs], like the Fourth of July!”. . . .George Mott, is himself a Muslim convert who speaks Arabic. He said that once as he talked to the boy on the phone, he could hear a Jihadi recruitment tape playing in the background talking of death to Zionists and America. . . . .
Jihad Janes spread fear in suburban US (Times of London, 14 March 2010)
Paulin-Ramirez’s Actions Raised Mother’s Concerns (Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2010)
Washington Post, 10 March 2010: A petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed high school dropout who allegedly used the nickname JihadJane was identified Tuesday as an alleged terrorist intent on recruiting others to her cause, as federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges that could send her to prison for life.
Colleen Renee LaRose, 46, has been quietly held in U.S. custody since October on suspicions that she provided material support to terrorists and traveled to Sweden to launch an attack, according to federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is continuing to unfold.
LaRose, who lived in suburban Philadelphia, allegedly recruited men and women in the United States, Europe and South Asia to “wage violent jihad,” according to an indictment issued in Pennsylvania. She fueled her interests on the Internet over the past few years and used Web sites such as YouTube to post increasingly agitated messages, the court papers said.
As an American citizen whose appearance and passport allowed her to blend into Western society, LaRose represents one of the worst fears of intelligence and FBI analysts focused on identifying terrorist threats. She is one of only a handful of women to be charged with terrorism offenses in the United States, national security experts said. . . .
Pennsylvania Woman Indicted in Plot to Recruit Violent Jihadist Fighters and to Commit Murder Overseas (DOJ, 9 March 2010)
David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Michael L. Levy, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, together with Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI in Philadelphia, today announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Colleen R. LaRose, aka “Fatima LaRose,” aka “JihadJane,” with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official, and attempted identity theft.
The indictment charges that LaRose (an American citizen born in 1963 who resides in Montgomery County, Pa.) and five unindicted co-conspirators (located in South Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the United States) recruited men on the Internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad.
The indictment further charges that LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators used the Internet to establish relationships with one another and to communicate regarding their plans, which included martyring themselves, soliciting funds for terrorists, soliciting passports, and avoiding travel restrictions (through the collection of passports and through marriage) in order to wage violent jihad. The indictment further charges that LaRose stole another individual’s U.S. passport and transferred or attempted to transfer it in an effort to facilitate an act of international terrorism.
In addition, according to the indictment, LaRose received a direct order to kill a citizen and resident of Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.” The indictment further charges that LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend in while carrying out her plans. According to the indictment, LaRose traveled to Europe and tracked the intended target online in an effort to complete her task.
“Today’s indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. “I applaud the many agents, analysts, and prosecutors who worked on this important investigation.”
“This case shows the use terrorists can and do make of the Internet,” said U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy. “Colleen LaRose and five other individuals scattered across the globe are alleged to have used the Internet to form a conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism, culminating in a direct order to LaRose to commit murder overseas. LaRose—an American citizen whose appearance was considered to be an asset because it allowed her to blend in—is charged with using the Internet to recruit violent jihadist fighters and supporters, and to solicit passports and funding. It demonstrates yet another very real danger lurking on the Internet. This case also demonstrates that terrorists are looking for Americans to join them in their cause, and it shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance.”
“This case demonstrates that the FBI and our partners in the law enforcement and intelligence communities must continue to remain vigilant in the face of the threats that America faces, in whatever form those threats may present themselves or no matter how creative those who threaten us try to be,” said Special Agent-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI. “We must use all available technologies and techniques to root out potential threats and stop those who intend to harm us.”
If convicted of the charges against her, LaRose faces a potential sentence of life in prison and a $1 million fine.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. It is being prosecuted by Jennifer Arbittier Williams, Assistant U.S. Attorney from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Matthew F. Blue, Trial Attorney from the Counterterrorism Section in the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
INDICTMENT: US v Colleen R. Larose aka Fatima LaRose, aka JihadJane (.pdf)
