'JihadJane' Grew Frustrated When Alleged Co-Conspirators Wouldn't Move Fast Enough

Colleen R. LaRose, the alleged American Islamic militant who used the Internet nom de guerre "JihadJane," traveled to Ireland last year to meet a group of Internet acquaintances, expecting they would join her as co-conspirators in an alleged murder plot, according to sources in the United States and Ireland who are familiar with the investigation. But when she landed in Ireland, she discovered that her supposed collaborators weren't nearly as keen as she allegedly was on actually carrying out the plot, according to a U.S. official who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information. The official says that on meeting the group, LaRose decided they were "all talk and no action," and she flew home to Pennsylvania, disappointed after spending some time with them, having concluded that they "weren't willing to move forward."

In an indictment released yesterday, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia accused LaRose of a series of terrorist offenses, including conspiring to murder an unnamed resident of Sweden. As we reported, her arrest was quickly linked by law-enforcement sources to the arrests in southern Ireland of seven unnamed individuals on murder conspiracy charges. U.S. and Irish news reports alleged that the target of the plot was Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who began receiving death threats in 2007 after a Swedish newspaper published a caricature he drew of the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. A Qaeda faction in Iraq reportedly offered a $100,000 bounty to anyone who murdered Vilks.

Those arrested ranged in age from mid-20s to late 40s, according to a statement by Ireland's national police force, the Garda Síochána. A U.S. official has given NEWSWEEK confirmation of a report in the Irish Times that at least one of the suspects detained in Ireland was an American, but neither Irish nor American authorities have released further information about their identities.

News reports and law enforcement sources in the United States have described LaRose as an individual with a troubled personal history, including a suicide attempt in 2005, according to CNN. Police records show an arrest for drunk driving and another for passing a bad check. A former boyfriend, Kurt Gorman, told CNN that LaRose suddenly left him last summer, at which point he discovered that his passport was missing. LaRose's indictment alleges that on the day she departed for Europe last August, she "knowingly took the United States passport" of someone identified only as "K.G." without his permission "in order to provide it to the ‘brothers.'"

The FBI submitted a complaint to a federal magistrate in Philadelphia last October seeking LaRose's arrest on a charge of passport theft, court records show. She was arrested but detained without further publicity while investigations into the more lurid aspects of the case continued. Mark T. Wilson, the Philadelphia public defender who represents LaRose, did not respond to Declassified's telephone messages requesting comment.