Texas Housewife becomes Terrorist!
Tim Reid, Washington 
Times of London
Times of London
A blonde, blue-eyed, diminutive American woman using the nom de guerre Jihad Jane has been revealed as an alleged terrorist who plotted to murder the Swedish artist vilified by Muslims because of his drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Colleen LaRose, 46, is accused of travelling to Sweden to kill Lars Vilks, believing that her appearance would help her to move freely to carry out the attack. She was arrested by US authorities in October and has been quietly held in prison since then, but her alleged role as a homegrown terrorist who used the internet to recruit and join overseas groups emerged only yesterday after the indictment against her was unsealed by US authorities.
According to the indictment, Ms LaRose, who also used the pseudonym “Fatima Larose”, agreed to kill the artist on orders from unnamed terrorists and travelled to Sweden to carry out the murder.
US authorities said that her case was linked to the arrest on Tuesday of seven people in the Irish Republic who are accused of being part of a plot to kill Mr Vilks, whose depiction in 2007 of the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog outraged many Muslims.
Ms LaRose, a school dropout who converted to Islam in the past few years, allegedly recruited men and women in the US, Europe and Asia “to wage violent jihad”. Why she converted to Islam remains unclear. She has been married at least twice and in Texas in the 1980s was arrested for writing bad cheques and drink-driving.
Her boyfriend of five years said that Ms LaRose had never hinted at Muslim leanings or attended religious services of any kind.
Kurt Gorman said that he had met her in Texas and that nothing seemed amiss until she moved out of their apartment without warning in August. She took Mr Gorman’s passport. “I came home and she was gone. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “She was a good-hearted person.”
Her online messages, prosecutors say, expressed a willingness to become a martyr and impatience to take action. By March 2009, according to the indictment, Ms LaRose was actively planning to kill Mr Vilks. She wrote online to one South Asian suspect: “I will make this [killing the artist] my goal till I achieve it or die trying.”
In July, in her home state of Pennsylvania, the FBI interviewed Ms LaRose. She denied posting messages on a terrorist website or having used the name Jihad Jane. The next month she removed the hard drive from her computer and travelled to Sweden “with the intent to live and train with jihadists, and to find and kill” her target, according to the indictment.
In September 2009, Ms LaRose allegedly searched the internet to find Mr Vilks and travelled to the area where he lived. On September 30 she sent an e-mail to a co-conspirator whom she was allegedly willing to marry, declaring that it would be “an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for” him.
Ms LaRose returned to the US in the autumn, apparently believing that the people she had plotted with were not serious enough. She was arrested in October and has been charged 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.
Colleen LaRose, 46, is accused of travelling to Sweden to kill Lars Vilks, believing that her appearance would help her to move freely to carry out the attack. She was arrested by US authorities in October and has been quietly held in prison since then, but her alleged role as a homegrown terrorist who used the internet to recruit and join overseas groups emerged only yesterday after the indictment against her was unsealed by US authorities.
According to the indictment, Ms LaRose, who also used the pseudonym “Fatima Larose”, agreed to kill the artist on orders from unnamed terrorists and travelled to Sweden to carry out the murder.
US authorities said that her case was linked to the arrest on Tuesday of seven people in the Irish Republic who are accused of being part of a plot to kill Mr Vilks, whose depiction in 2007 of the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog outraged many Muslims.
Ms LaRose, a school dropout who converted to Islam in the past few years, allegedly recruited men and women in the US, Europe and Asia “to wage violent jihad”. Why she converted to Islam remains unclear. She has been married at least twice and in Texas in the 1980s was arrested for writing bad cheques and drink-driving.
Her boyfriend of five years said that Ms LaRose had never hinted at Muslim leanings or attended religious services of any kind.
Kurt Gorman said that he had met her in Texas and that nothing seemed amiss until she moved out of their apartment without warning in August. She took Mr Gorman’s passport. “I came home and she was gone. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “She was a good-hearted person.”
Her online messages, prosecutors say, expressed a willingness to become a martyr and impatience to take action. By March 2009, according to the indictment, Ms LaRose was actively planning to kill Mr Vilks. She wrote online to one South Asian suspect: “I will make this [killing the artist] my goal till I achieve it or die trying.”
In July, in her home state of Pennsylvania, the FBI interviewed Ms LaRose. She denied posting messages on a terrorist website or having used the name Jihad Jane. The next month she removed the hard drive from her computer and travelled to Sweden “with the intent to live and train with jihadists, and to find and kill” her target, according to the indictment.
In September 2009, Ms LaRose allegedly searched the internet to find Mr Vilks and travelled to the area where he lived. On September 30 she sent an e-mail to a co-conspirator whom she was allegedly willing to marry, declaring that it would be “an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for” him.
Ms LaRose returned to the US in the autumn, apparently believing that the people she had plotted with were not serious enough. She was arrested in October and has been charged 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.
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