ABC NEWS: A suburban Pennsylvania woman known by the alias “Jihad Jane” has been arrested and charged with trying to recruit Islamic fighters and for plotting to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed, according to a federal indictment unsealed today. Colleen R. LaRose, 46, of Montgomery, Pa., described by neighbors as an average “housewife,” is better known to federal authorities as “Fatima Rose” or “Jihad Jane.” The indictment, obtained by ABC News, charges LaRose with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country. She is also accused of making false statements to a government official and of attempted identity theft, a passport she allegedly stole with the intention of giving to an Islamic fighter. The court papers claim that LaRose reached out through the Internet to jihadist groups saying she was “desperate to do something to help” suffering Muslim people, and that she desired to become a martyr. She stated in her e-mails “that her physical appearance would allow her to ‘blend in with many people’ which ‘may be a way to achieve what is in my heart,'” the indictment states. MORE
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: The indictment further charges that LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators used the Internet to establish relationships 
with one another and to communicate regarding their plans, which included martyring themselves, soliciting funds for terrorists, soliciting passports and avoiding travel restrictions (through the collection of passports and through marriage) in order to wage violent jihad. The indictment further charges that LaRose stole another individual’s U.S. passport and transferred or attempted to transfer it in an effort to facilitate an act of international terrorism. In addition, according to the indictment, LaRose received a direct order to kill a citizen and resident of Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.” The indictment further charges that LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend in while carrying out her plans. If convicted of the charges against her, LaRose faces a potential sentence of life in prison and a $1 million fine. MORE
JAWA REPORT: Since [LaRose] metamorphosed into the perfect recruit, her previous internet activity was easy to track which she listed her real name, birth date, location, and even online pictures of herself. She was the perfect recruit for extremist; lonely, isolated, blaming others for her problems, in the middle of a midlife crisis, and upset that she had to care for her elderly mother. She lashed out and converted to Islam then used this as an excuse to lash out further at society for being at fault for her problems and citing her elderly mother she had to care for who did not approve of her conversion. Colleen went 
from being angry at the U.S. as a sociopath blaming them for all her problems in life to actually contacting real terrorist plotting terroristic threats against the U.S. Although Youtube Smackdown was responsible for removing most of her terrorist accounts, she remained determined to create more accounts on youtube promoting terrorism against the U.S. and grew more of a following of real terrorist as time went on, joining online terrorist websites and promoting them on her youtube channels. When she finally made an account which she actively solicited funds for the Pakistan Mujaheddin, which at this point I knew she had acquired the contacts for, I knew she had become a real threat for our safety and had officially violated U.S. Federal Law. It was time to report her. This being in July 2009 I formally called the FBI in Philadelphia to report her. MORE
RELATED: Jihad Jane’s Many, Many YouTube Accounts
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Her boyfriend of five years said LaRose had never hinted at Muslim leanings or attended religious services of any kind. Kurt Gorman, 47, of Pennsburg, said that he met LaRose in Texas and that nothing seemed amiss until she moved out of their apartment without warning in August. “I came home and she was gone. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said Wednesday outside his small business in nearby Quakertown. “She was a good-hearted person.” She moved to Europe in August with Gorman’s stolen passport and intended to give it to one of her “brothers,” the indictment said. She hoped to “live and train with jihadists and to find and kill” the targeted artist, it said. MORE
CNN: Irish police arrested seven people Tuesday suspected of plotting to commit a murder abroad, they announced. Irish media reports said the target was Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who drew a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog in 2007, prompting al Qaeda to offer $100,000 to anyone who killed him — plus an extra $50,000 if the killer slits his throat. MORE
THE GUARDIAN: Lars Vilks, the Swedish artist at the centre of an alleged assassination attempt, was put under police protection in 2007 when al-Qaida offered a reward for his “slaughter”. Vilks’s depiction of the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in a series of drawings prompted the terrorist group to put a $100,000 bounty on his head. The sketches had sparked a furious reaction from Muslim groups and countries including Pakistan and Iran. Some Islamic traditions consider it blasphemous to make or show an image of the prophet, and Vilks’s drawings were regarded as especially derogatory as dogs are a symbol of filth for many Muslims. MORE
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The alleged target of the murder conspiracy, Swedish artist Lars Vilks, told The Associated Press he believed that the Irish arrests 
are linked to two telephone death threats he received in January over one of his drawings published in a Swedish newspaper in August 2007. Vilks said in a telephone interview he received those threats shortly after Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — who also faced extremist Muslim death threats for his 2005 depictions of Muhammad — was threatened when a Somali man wielding an ax broke into his home in Denmark on Jan. 1. Westergaard locked himself in a room and called police, who shot and wounded the attacker. MORE
WIKIPEDIA: The Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog (a form of street installation in Sweden). Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence. The controversy gained international attention after the Örebro-based regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on 18 August to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion.[1] While several other leading Swedish newspapers had published the drawings already, this particular publication led to protests from Muslims in Sweden as well as official condemnations from several foreign governments including Iran,[2] Pakistan,[3] Afghanistan,[4] Egypt,[5] and Jordan,[6] as well as by the inter-governmental Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).[7] The controversy occurred about a year and a half after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark in early 2006. MORE