A Colorado teenager arrested and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
Nineteen year old Shannon Maureen Conley taken into custody by the FBI as she attempted to board a plane to Turkey at the Denver international airport in April.
Her goal, authorities say, to unite with the radical Islamist group ISIS in syria, and marry a jihadist she met on the internet.
According to a newly unsealed criminal complaint Conley discussed her radical beliefs with federal agents over the course of an 8 month investigation,
referring to US military bases as targets, and telling investigators she thought she could plan an attack on US soil but could not carry it out because
she lacked the means and opportunity. Ignoring warnings that aiding terrorists would result in her arrest, Conley told investigators she needed to go
overseas to be trained in Jihad.
The teenager became the subject of an FBI investigation after a pastor who feared she was planning an attack at a local church reported what he
saw as suspicious activity to the police.
Rev. George Morrison: "She became more, a little bit more hostile. And eventually we came to her and said listen, it's just probably better that you not come back."
According to court documents, Conley told investigators that she hates the people at the church, asserting "If they think I'm a terrorist, I'll give them something to think I am."
According to the complaint, agents recovered material about Jihad and al-Qaeda from her house, in addition to DVDs of
Enwar al-Awalki, the american militant killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011. The teenager joins a growing list of Americans who have been detained for attempting to join terrorist organizations abroad.
And according to this recently unsealed criminal complaint, Conley even received military training in an effort to train Jihadists overseas about US military tactics, and when the FBI encouraged her to join a humanitarian aid organization instead, she allegedly said it was not
an option because it would not solve the problem of protecting Muslim lands.