Single Mom, Muslim Convert Arrested in Terror Probe

In this photo released by the Tom Green County Jail, Colleen R. LaRose, self-described 'Jihad Jane,' poses for a mug shot photo June 26, 1997, in San Angelo, Texas. LaRose, from Pennsylvania, was recently indicted by American authorities on terror charges, including plotting to kill Swiss cartoonist Lars Vilks for his caricature of Muhammed. (Tom Green County Jail via Getty Images)

A troubled divorcee from Colarado, who recently converted to Islam, has been arrested in Ireland for allegedly plotting to murder a Swedish artist.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old single mother, was said to have vowed to “strap a bomb” for the cause of radical Islam.
She is the second woman from small-town America who has been arrested for playing a role in a suspected plot to murder Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who had depicted the Prophet Muhammed with the body of a dog.

Colleen LaRose, who allegedly called herself ‘Jihad Jane’ on the Internet, was charged in the U.S. last week over the plot to kill Vilks.

The mother of Paulin-Ramirez, Christine Mott was quoted by AP as saying that her daughter had the “mentality of an abused woman,” and had been “sucked in” the jihadist cause through her loneliness.

Paulin-Ramirez became obsessed with radical Web sites and converted to Islam last year, her mother said.

“It came out of left field,” she said. “I knew she was talking to these people online. ... What caused her to turn her back on her country, on her family, and become this person? I don’t know how or why.”

Paulin-Ramirez allegedly told her stepfather George Mott, a longtime Muslim convert, that she would “strap a bomb” for the cause of Islam.

However, she became increasingly alienated from the rest of her family, warning them that they would go to hell if they did not wear a Muslim headscarf.

“We were enemies. We couldn’t even speak to each other,” Mrs. Mott told AP.

In September last year, Paulin-Ramirez said she had moved to Ireland and had married an Algerian man she had met online.

Her mother said that she was among seven arrested in Ireland last week over the alleged plot to murder Vilks.

Police have officially refused to confirm the identities of those who were arrested. However over the weekend, four of the seven were released without charge. Three remain in custody.

Mrs. Mott said that she was aware that her daugther had been in communication with LaRose, who lived 1,800 miles away in her second-floor flat in Main Street, Pennsburg, and had followed a parallel path into radicalization.

LaRose, who used the name ‘Jihad Jane’ on the Internet, will appear in a U.S. court on Thursday on charges of conspiring to kill Vilks.

She came to the attention of the FBI in July last year, but in August had already left for Europe. There she declared online, “Only death will stop me now I am so close to the target.”

In September, she applied to join Ladonia, an online artists’ community run by Lars Vilks. According to court documents, LaRose tried to find Vilks but was unsuccessful.

She was arrested at the airport after flying back to Philadelphia on Oct. 15, and later charged with terrorism offences.

It was reported that her testimony may have led to the arrest of Paulin-Ramirez and six others in Ireland last week. One was an Algerian said to be Paulin-Ramirez’s husband.

In 2007, a group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq offered a $100,000 reward for killing Vilks. In addition, there would be a 50 percent bonus if he was “slaughtered like a lamb” by having his throat cut, the group said.

Vilks’s cartoon was published 18 months after cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed caused an uproar around the world after being published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.