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 Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, plotted to hit
police, government or military targets based on their "violent
jihadist beliefs," according to the complaint filed in U.S. District
Court in Brooklyn.
It said Velentzas and Siddiqui were conspiring "to prepare an
explosive device to be detonated in a terrorist attack in the United
States."
The complaint said Velentzas had praised al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks on the United States and said she and Siddiqui were
"citizens of the Islamic State."
The women, former roommates in the city borough of Queens, had
researched how to build an explosive device and had read textbooks
on electricity and watched online videos about soldering, it said.
When they were arrested, agents found bomb-building materials
including propane gas tanks, soldering tools, pipes, a pressure
cooker and fertilizer, authorities said.
The women also voiced support for beheadings of Western journalists
and others by militants in control of territory in Syria and Iraq,
the complaint said.
Charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against
persons or property in the United States, the pair appeared briefly
before U.S. Magistrate Judge Viktor Pohorelsky in Brooklyn federal
court.
Neither Velentzas, who wore a black dress and hijab, nor Siddiqui,
in a green T-shirt over black clothing, entered a plea. Authorities
said both women posed substantial flight risks, and they were
ordered detained until trial.
Thomas Dunn, a court-appointed lawyer for Siddiqui, said she would
plead not guilty if indicted. "I know it is a serious case, but
we're going to fight it out in court," he said.
Velentzas's lawyer Sean Maher declined comment.
The women face the possibility of life in prison if convicted.
"We are committed to doing everything in our ability to detect,
disrupt and deter attacks by homegrown violent extremists," Brooklyn
U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement. Lynch is President
Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. attorney general.
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RASH OF CASES
The complaint said Siddiqui had been in contact with al Qaeda
members and Velentzas was Facebook friends with Tairod Pugh, a U.S.
Air Force veteran charged with attempting to aid Islamic State, a
militant group that holds territory in Iraq and Syria. Pugh, 47, of
Neptune, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty last month.
Separately on Thursday, Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, a U.S. citizen
accused of training with al Qaeda in Pakistan, appeared in Brooklyn
federal court on charges he had conspired to provide personnel to be
used by Islamist militants in support of efforts to kill U.S.
citizens and members of the U.S. military abroad.
In March, the U.S. Justice Department said a U.S. Army National
Guard soldier and his cousin had been arrested on charges of
conspiring to support the Islamic State militant group in a plot
that included a plan to attack a military installation in Illinois.
In another case, a Somali-American teenager who was stopped at a
Minnesota airport as he sought to fly to Turkey last year pleaded
guilty in federal court in February to conspiring to support Islamic
State.
Also in February, three men living in Brooklyn were charged with
conspiring to support Islamic State, and U.S. authorities said two
of them had planned to go to Syria to fight on behalf of the group.
(Editing by Toni Reinhold and Mohammad Zargham)
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