DENVER (AP) — FBI agents tried more than once to
discourage a 19-year-old suburban Denver woman who said she was intent
on waging jihad in the Middle East before arresting her in April as she
boarded a flight she hoped would ultimately get her to Syria, court
documents unsealed Wednesday show.
Shannon Maureen Conley had told
agents that she wanted to use her American military training from the
U.S. Army Explorers to start a holy war overseas, even though she knew
that it was illegal, according to the newly released federal court
records. Her "legitimate targets of attack" included military
facilities, government employees and public officials, the documents
say.
Conley was arrested April 8 at Denver International Airport,
where she told agents she planned to live with a suitor she met online,
apparently a Tunisian man who claimed to be fighting for an al-Qaida
splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The militant
group also known as ISIL or ISIS has recently overrun parts of Iraq and
Syria.
Conley has been charged with conspiring to help a foreign
terrorist organization. Her federal public defender did not immediately
return a call seeking comment.
A nurse’s aide, Conley told
investigators she planned to fly to Turkey and then travel to Syria to
become a housewife and a nurse at the man’s camp, providing medical
services and training.
FBI agents became aware of Conley’s growing
interest in extremism in November after she started talking about
terrorism with employees of a suburban Denver church who found her
wandering around and taking notes on the layout of the campus, according
to the court documents. The church, Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada, was
the scene of a 2007 shooting in which a man killed two missionary
workers.
She spoke with agents several times after that, telling
them of her desire for jihad, the records state. The agents tried openly
to dissuade her, urging her instead to support Muslims through
humanitarian efforts, which she told them was not an option.
"Conley felt that Jihad is the only answer to correct the wrongs against the Muslim world," the
documents say.
Agents
encouraged Conley’s parents to get her to meet with elders at her
mosque to find more moderate options. Her parents were apparently
unaware of her extremism, authorities said.
Her father told an
agent in March that Conley and her suitor had asked for his blessing to
marry and were surprised when he declined. Her father later found a
one-way plane ticket to Turkey.
Four days before her arrest, she
told agents "there was nothing they could do to change her mind and that
she was still going." They stopped her as she was walking down the
jetway.