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TWO AMERICAN WOMEN inspired by Al-Qaeda and extremists in Syria were arrested in New York yesterday, charged with planning to build a bomb and attack the United States, prosecutors said.
Former roommates Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, risk life behind bars if convicted of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States.
The pair from Queens were shadowed for nearly two years by an undercover FBI agent and appeared before a magistrate at the federal district court in Brooklyn yesterday.
Siddiqui was “in possession of multiple propane gas tanks, as well as instructions for how to transform propane tanks into explosive devices,” court papers state.
The women had not decided on a target, although documents show that married Velentzas mentioned a New York police funeral as an “attractive potential target.”
She also said they should be referred to as “citizens” of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group fighting in Iraq and Syria and that “there were more opportunities of ‘pleasing Allah’ in the United States” than traveling overseas to fight, prosecutors said.
The pair allegedly studied Al-Qaeda’s English-language magazine “Inspire” and “The Anarchist Cookbook” for instructions on how to build a bomb, and they had started to acquire some ingredients.
Siddiqui wrote a poem in an Al-Qaeda publication as early as 2009 and Velentzas called Osama bin Laden one of her heroes, allegedly keeping a picture of the Al-Qaeda mastermind on her mobile phone.
Praise for 9/11 attacks
They communicated with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, and watched videos of beheadings carried out by IS extremists in Syria, the complaint said.
In a self-proclaimed effort to “make history,” prosecutors said the pair researched previous attacks and acquired some components of bombs used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
As with the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon in April 2012, the women allegedly had online jihadist instructions on how to make explosive devices.
“We remain firm in our resolve to hold accountable anyone who would seek to terrorize the American people,” said Loretta Lynch, Attorney General nominee and current US attorney for the eastern district of New York.
The two women bring to six the number of people her office has charged in connection with IS-linked terror plots in recent weeks.
Siddiqui was allegedly close to Pakistani-American citizen Samir Khan, who went on to edit Al-Qaeda’s English-language “Inspire” magazine and was killed in a US drone strike in 2011.
Velentzas praised the 9/11 attacks and suggested they learn the science behind explosives to avoid the fate of Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistan-American who attempted to blow up Times Square in 2010.
He was captured and jailed for life.
Suspected undercover agent
She once allegedly pulled a knife from her bra and demonstrated to Siddiqui and the agent how she would stab someone if attacked.
The two women discussed how to avoid detection, and browsing history suggests that Velentzas at one point suspected the undercover officer.
She was also Facebook friends with former US Air Force mechanic Tairod Pugh, 47, who pleaded not guilty in a separate IS alleged plot before a Brooklyn court last month, the complaint said.
Yesterday’s arrests are the latest in a string of alleged plots inspired by Islamic extremists.
US intelligence officials warned in February that more than 20,000 volunteers from around the world, including more than 150 Americans, had gone to Syria to link up with extremists.
- © AFP 2015.
Might as well just criminalise depression while you’re at it too.
@Jamie McCormack: You don’t think talking depressed people into committing suicide is wrong?
@Boutros Boutros-Ghali: Of course it is, I hadn’t made that connection though. Fair point.
@Jamie McCormack: You should try thinking, it’s great.
@Boutros Boutros-Ghali: easy to do when your not suffering from depression!
@Ashling Visser Bishop: All the more reason to criminalise those who would try to talk depressed people into committing suicide.
@Jamie McCormack: There’s quite big difference between tragically succumbing to your own depression, and taking somebody else, somebosy who is likely also very vulnerable, with yoym
How on earth is making a suicide pact a criminal offence going to help stop people from doing it?? If they genuinely want to prevent people from committing suicide then they need to understand what’s driving people to it in the first place and then provide support. FFS what they gonna do follow you to the other side with a court summons?!
@Alison O’Connor: I agree, it’s a stupid approach. What is life without quality of life? Maybe they have terrible palliative care or something? Loneliness if a wife or husband dies, maybe? Or it might be poverty that drives some to it? Yes, I’m certain they could do more for their citizens if they listened to them. But who the heck is going to confide in their nurses if they’re considering what’s been turned into a criminal act?
@Alison O’Connor: it’s cheaper than investing in mental health. Korea is an even lore neo liberal kip than Ireland is and culturaly they tend not to care about anyone not “economically viable”.
S Korean society is basically based on slave labour. There is so much pressure on young men in particular to study and become a “salary man”. They only have one day off a week and during the week it is from 6am to often 9pm. At the same time pretty young women are worshiped and envied by both men and women, at the same time women do not have military conscription. Not so pretty women take out loans for plastic surgery and then wait for a rich man to marry them. It is a pretty messed up place.
You seem to have everything understood about Korea ? Koreans have 2 days off…The pressure it high to study though, that’s clear, but they work from 9am to 6, sometimes later
@Séamus McCallion: ‘A pretty messed up place’ is a sweeping generalisation for a country of over 50 million. Korean society has its problems like most developed countries, a high suicide rate the one that grabs all the headlines, but it’s a wonderful country of wonderful hospital people. I lived there, and with Koreans, for almost a decade and know what I’m talking about. You clearly do not, however.
@davidMbyrne.com: ‘hospitable people’ even!
@Séamus McCallion: North korea is a lot better dispite all the media attacks.
He’s typing this from his mommy’s spare room. I live in Busan, I’m curious where he gets his made up thoughts on Korean society from. Maybe he was left broken hearted by a pretty Korean girl ?
Made up thoughts? No. I am friends with a Korean couple who tell it as it is.
@Stephen Kennedy: The west through the eyes of north korea. Youtube.
You should take a trip out of Ireland sometime to open your mind for yourself. It seems you don’t actually know anything about Korea.
A Korean couple who left Korea and are in Ireland, talking negative about the place :o Sounds like me talking about Ireland after a few pints
@davidMbyrne.com: good man Dave but left you forget everyone here knows everything better and our society is always correct
@davidMbyrne.com: your experience of a section korean life doesn’t make u an expert..a little knowledge and all that.
@Stephen Kennedy: Actually they live in Seoul right now. I agree there are many great things about Korea but for the average person life is very tough with no safety net whatsoever.
Sure it’s been an offense, here (actually wonder if it still is) that’s why we say such & such “committed” suicide, because was (or is) a offense.
@Censorship is modern day book burning:
So you would say John/Mary “committed” suicide instead of “is” (or “are”) suicide?
Is English your first language??
@Joe Phillips: Is it yours?
@Boutros Boutros-Ghali: evidently not
I’m living in Seoul at the moment. Suicide is a big problem as they don’t support those who suffer with depression! There are no / very few groups or charities that help with depression or suicide. Also, they have little to no support for the elderly – hence the high rate in that age group. Ireland is so far ahead in their acceptance of the illness and in trying to help those in need.
Suicide pacts are evil things and this may help the rate to fall but they really need to focus on the causes!!!!!
Correct, but in Korea you can be operated on within the first visit of GP, in Ireland you wait 4 years. Old age is a big problem here tho..I do agree
@Stephen Kennedy: Some aspects of life in South Korea are very good – I agree ! but it is such a superficial society! anything that may be seen as a weakness is bad! so sad
Night out in Itaewon sorts that out
@Stephen Kennedy: hahhah – that’s where I live :)
I’m dying to see how that’ll work out.
So why a picture of a shopping street in Seoul. You wouldn’t head an article on irish suicide with a tourist shot of Grafton Street…
Punishable by death…..
I had heard that South Korea’s setting out to boost their life expectancy rates to better than North America’s. Well, there goes South Park!
@Fiona Fitzgerald: all they have to do is wait. Longevity is in decline in the USA. 78 at the moment and dropping
Anyone caught organizing these will get the death penalty
punishment will be the death penalty
Theres a reason we work 9-5 because because 9-6 might kill a niga .
Dave chappelle
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