Christian Science Monitor, 7 April 2010: Two recent incidents in the United States and Russia are suggesting that, when it comes to terrorism, men and women are perhaps not as different as society might believe.
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez last week became the second American woman to be arraigned on terrorism charges in connection with the attempted assassination of a Swedish cartoonist, following alleged co-conspirator, Colleen LaRose, also known as “Jihad Jane.” Meanwhile, the recent terror bombings in Russia suggest the resurrection of the “black widows” – female suicide bombers that sprang up a decade ago to strike back at the Kremlin’s during its war against Chechnya.
In the US, where women commit fewer than 10 percent of murders, the reality of female terrorists can still shock – and even more so when they come from within American borders. But the case of Jihad Jane here and the resurgence of the black widows in Russia in many ways points to the universality of the terrorist message to certain people, be they men or women, poor or middle class, young or middle aged. . . . .
US woman silently pleads not guilty in terror case (AP, 7 April 2010)
With a shake of the head, a pregnant Colorado woman pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a charge of helping foreign terrorists who authorities say were plotting to kill a Swedish artist.
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, entered the silent plea to avoid giving prosecutors a sample of her voice. The government evidence includes hard drives and other computer files that may contain voice recordings, and her lawyer did not want to provide a sample for comparison. “If there’s any voice recordings, I would not want to be creating evidence against her,” said lawyer Jeremy Ibrahim, who spent several years at the Justice Department.
Paulin-Ramirez, then a single mother and nursing student, left Colorado for Ireland in the fall with her 6-year-old son to join a Pennsylvania woman she had met online, then married an Algerian terrorism suspect the day she arrived, according to the indictment unsealed Friday. E-mails between the American women suggest a mutual intent to support a Muslim jihad, or holy war, authorities charge. . . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 163–Dying to Kill Us: Understanding the Mindset of Suicide Operations
New York Times, 6 April 2010: The second female suicide bomber who attacked the Moscow subway system last week was a 28-year-old teacher from a predominantly Muslim region of southern Russia who was married to an extremist leader, officials said on Tuesday.
The woman, Maryam Sharipova, was first identified by her father, and genetic tests confirmed that she carried out the attack during the morning rush on March 29. Ms. Sharipova was from the Dagestan region, in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, as was the other suicide bomber, a 17-year-old woman whose name was released last Friday.
Ms. Sharipova is believed to have been the suicide bomber at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow, a site apparently chosen because it is next to the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the K.G.B. . . .
. . . . In an interview with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Mr. Magomedov said his daughter had a psychology degree and worked as a schoolteacher in a small Dagestani village. He said he was shocked that she became a bomber, insisting that she was not involved with the Islamic insurgency. “She was devout, but she never expressed radical views,” he said. “She always lived at home, and we always knew what she was doing.”
But he acknowledged that he had been told by Russian security officials before the bombing that an insurgent leader, Magomedali Vagabov, had secretly married Ms. Sharipova. “I asked my daughter if it was true, but she said she didn’t have any connections with the underground resistance and would never marry without my permission,” he said. . . .
Haaretz, 5 April 2010: Amana Muna promised 16-year-old Ofir Rahum from Ashkelon a “good time” and with that, enticed him to join her in Ramallah. Previously, Muna had tried to entice two other Israeli teens to Ramallah, but they refused to pass through the Israeli checkpoints.
With Rahum, who was unfamiliar with the reality in the territories, which were then at the height of the intifada, Muna had far less trouble luring him to visit. In an ICQ message she sent in January 2001, she wrote him that one of her girlfriends had loaned her an apartment. She requested that he bring a condom and inquired whether he had a girlfriend. After asking whether he would tell his friends about their meeting, Muna became more direct. She said though she was interested in sex, she did not want to become pregnant. Furthermore, she was curious to know what his mother would say if she found out about their relationship.
On January 17, 2001, she picked him up at Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station and drove him to Ramallah, where two armed men, members of Fatah’s military arm, were waiting for him. When they tried to take him to their car, Rahum refused and they shot him at point blank range. Three days later, Muna, then 24 years old, was arrested.
The ICQ conversation between Muna and Rahum is revealed in the introduction to Dr. Anat Berko’s book, “Isha Ptzatza” (“The Smarter Bomb: Women and Children as Suicide Bombers”), which is scheduled for publication next week in Hebrew by Yedioth Books.
A researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Berko met with female security prisoners, including those who had planned to carry out suicide bombings, and she studied the stories of female suicide bombers who had actually detonated themselves. . . . .
The path to paradise: the inner world of suicide bombers and their dispatchers By Anat Berko (Google Books)
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 163–Dying to Kill Us: Understanding the Mindset of Suicide Operations
DOJ, 2 April 2010: A superseding indictment unsealed this afternoon in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania charges Jamie Paulin Ramirez, a U.S. citizen and former resident of Colorado, and Colleen R. LaRose, aka “Fatima LaRose,” aka “JihadJane,” a resident of Pennsylvania, with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. The superseding indictment adds Ramirez as a defendant to what was previously an indictment charging only LaRose.
The new charges were announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Michael L. Levy, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; and Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI in Philadelphia.
The superseding indictment charges that LaRose and Ramirez traveled to and around Europe to participate in and in support of violent jihad. According to the superseding indictment, Ramirez exchanged e-mail messages with LaRose during the summer of 2009, in which LaRose invited Ramirez to join her in Europe to attend a “training camp.” Ramirez is charged with accepting the invitation and asking to bring along her minor male child. On Sept, 12, 2009, Ramirez traveled to Europe with her child with the intent to live and train with jihadists. The day she arrived in Europe, the indictment alleges, Ramirez married an unindicted co-conspirator whom she had never before met in person.
The superseding indictment charges Ramirez, age 31, with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The charges against LaRose remain unchanged, and carry a maximum potential sentence of life in prison and a $1 million fine.
Ramirez was arrested this afternoon in Philadelphia after voluntarily flying to the United States from abroad.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Philadelphia, the FBI Field Division in New York, and the FBI Field Division in Denver. 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.
The public is reminded that an indictment is an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2010: 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 “JihadJane,” 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, boasting in one e-mail that it was “an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for” jihad, or holy war, the indictment said. . . . .
. . . “She appeared to be one of those people who spend a lot of time online and go to all these radical websites and chat rooms,” said one law enforcement source, who, like others interviewed, requested anonymity when discussing the case. “If there was some moment in her life that changed her, I don’t know,” another law enforcement source said. . . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine
♦ CI CENTRE BRIEFING: Inside Jihad: Recruited and Radicalized Into Terrorism
