Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Home Front: WoT

ISIS-inspired Queens women plead guilty to NYC bomb plot

2019-08-25

More on this story from yesterday about the end of a pair of romantic young ladies who preferred playing at jihad to giggling over movie star antics while enjoying weekly mani-pedis at the salon. The Greek-American convert, married and mother of one, and the Saudi lass who kept house for her brother and was Facebook friends with jihadi wannabes like Tairod Pugh (briefly a US Air Force airplane mechanic before selling his skillz to various MidEastern employers), did lots of “research and preparation” without actually accomplishing anything before they were arrested.

[NYPOST] Two terror fangirls from Queens who went gaga for al Qaeda and ISIS
ISIS

...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...
‐ including one who carried around the late Osama bin Laden
...... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse......
’s photo ‐ copped to bomb-building charges Friday that could land them in prison for up to 20 years.

Noelle Velentzas, 31, and Asia Siddiqui, 35, could wind up in prison for 20 years after pleading guilty in Brooklyn federal court to attempting to build a weapon of mass destruction.

Between 2013 and 2015, the pair plotted to set off explosives in New York. They researched how to make boom-mobiles and visited Home Depot in Queens to browse for bomb-building materials with a woman they knew as "Mel" ‐ who was actually an undercover agent who caught them on tape talking about their murderous fantasies.

"Noelle, Mel and I discussed the need to prepare for jihad," Siddiqui told Brooklyn federal Judge Sterling Johnson Jr., reading from a prepared written statement.

The two women taught each other chemistry and electrical skills that could be used to build bombs ‐ drawing inspiration from terror attacks launched on US soil like the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

In a December 27, 2014, meeting, the women also discussed the possibility of attacking the funeral for NYPD officer Rafael Ramos, who was fatally shot alongside partner Wenjian Liu while they sat in their patrol car in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The two would-be bombers were blatant about their support for terrorist groups abroad, court papers state, gleefully watching online videos of a suicide kaboom and of ISIS fighters beheading Syrian soldiers.

"Why we can’t be some real bad bitches?" Velentzas said in one meeting as she took a knife from her bra and showed Siddiqui and the informant how to stab someone.

On one occasion, Velentzas showed the informant her phone, which had a photo of Osama bin Laden ‐ who she called one of her heroes ‐ set as her screen pic.

Siddiqui, meanwhile, had been in repeated contact with members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to court papers, and was close with a prominent figure within the group.

That would be Samir Khan, the Pakistani-American lad who ran off to edit Al Qaeda in Yemen’s Inspire magazine, publishing therein a poem of hers absolutely redolent with the effort of its creation.

Siddiqui also tried her hand at gruesome terrorist poetry in which she called for readers to engage in violence and find truth "through fists and slit throats."

That’s the one. It was “inspired”. (Sorry. But even Pappy could not have resisted that one.)

"Velentzas and Siddiqui were intent on waging violent jihad here in the United States, researching at length historical terrorist attacks on US soil, educating themselves on how to turn propane tanks into bombs, and dreaming up plans to kill Americans on our own turf," FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney said in a news release.

Siddiqui and Velentzas are due back in court in December for sentencing.

Link

Home Front: WoT

ISIS-loving Air Force vet gets 35 years at weepy sentencing

2017-06-02

More on this story from yesterday.

[NYPOST] A US Air Force vet who became the first American ever to be convicted of attempting to join ISIS prattled on, sometimes tearfully, for nearly 40 minutes Wednesday before a Brooklyn federal judge interrupted him to say he wasn’t the holy warrior’s "psychiatrist" and sentenced him to 35 years behind bars.

"This isn’t about whether you’re Moslem or Christian or Jewish," US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis told Tairod Pugh before handing down his decision. "This is about whether you’re going to stand up for your country, which has done so much for you, or betray your country.

"You made your choice," the jurist growled. "I have no sympathy."

Pugh, who did not testify during his trial, spoke at length Wednesday in a tangential, sometimes incoherent rant in which he attempted to explain away terrorist propaganda found in his possession, as well as maps of the border crossings from ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
into Syria.

"I am a black man, I am a military man, I am a Moslem man," Pugh said before dissolving into tears.

"I protected this country and the Constitution," he choked. "And my service was repaid by stripping me of my career, shaming my wife, shaming my parents, shaming my children."

As he spoke to the judge, the Neptune, NJ, man -- who left his bride and children behind in Cairo when he made what he called "a one-way trip" to Turkey -- asked Garaufis to leaf through photos of him, mostly posing alongside various aircraft he’d worked on across the world.

The 49-year-old was convicted last March of plotting to join ISIS and obstructing a government proceeding. Upon his capture in Istanbul in 2015, he had attempted to destroy evidence of his plot.

Pugh served as an airplane mechanic for four years in the US military before he was honorably discharged and began working around the Middle East.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Air Force vet convicted of terrorism gets 35 years in prison

2017-06-01

[Ynet] A US Air Force veteran

...he served from 1986-1990, but given the rest of his life, it doesn't seem to have stuck...

convicted of terrorism charges for trying to join the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group and die a martyr was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison by a judge who called it a "very sad thing" that a onetime soldier would want to join a group seeking to destroy America.

The March 2016 conviction of Tairod Pugh, 49, of Neptune, New Jersey, was the first verdict from more than 70 cases the government brought against Americans accused of trying to support the Lion of Islam group.

"This isn't about whether you're a Moslem or a Christian or Jewish," US District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis told Pugh. "This is about whether you're going to stand up for your country."

The Brooklyn judge called Pugh's military service "a long time ago"

...27 years is almost a full generation...

commendable, but said the defendant squandered his training as an airplane mechanic and all the good things the United States did for him with a decision to betray his country.

Indeed.

Link

Home Front: WoT

USAF veteran convicted of attempting to join IS

2016-03-10

[Reuters] Tairod Pugh, a U.S. Air Force veteran, was found guilty on Wednesday of attempting to join Islamic State, according to his lawyer.

After a week-long trial in Brooklyn federal court, a jury found Pugh, 48, guilty of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, and obstruction for destroying four portable electronic storage devices after his detention in Turkey.

Prosecutors said Pugh immersed himself in violent Islamic State propaganda for months before buying a one-way flight from his home in Egypt to Turkey, where he hoped to cross the Syrian border into territory controlled by the extremist group.

He was detained by Turkish authorities at an Istanbul airport and eventually flown to the United States to face terrorism charges.

Pugh's defense lawyers argued that his only offense was to express "repugnant" views about Islamic State in Facebook posts and to watch dozens of the group's slickly produced recruitment videos. They said he traveled to Turkey to find work, not to become a jihadist.

But prosecutors pointed to a letter he drafted to his Egyptian wife, found on his laptop, in which he vowed to fight for Islam and declared he had two options: "Victory or Martyr." The letter was written days before he flew to Turkey, though it was unclear whether he ever sent it.

He also took with him to Istanbul a black facemask, a map depicting Islamic State's strongholds in Syria and a chart of the border crossings between Turkey and Syria.

Pugh served as an avionics specialist in the Air Force from 1986 to 1990 and later worked as an Army contractor in Iraq from 2009 to 2010, prosecutors said.

Rantburg's Tairod Pugh archive can be seen here.

Link

Home Front: WoT

2 NYC Women Arrested on Charges they Plotted to Build Bomb

2015-04-03

[AnNahar] Two women -- including one who was "obsessed with pressure cookers" -- were incarcerated
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
on charges they plotted to wage violent jihad by building a homemade bomb and using it for a Boston Marathon-type attack.

Noelle Velentzas had been "obsessed with pressure cookers since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013" and made jokes alluding to explosives after receiving one as a gift, according to a criminal complaint. And it says in a conversation with an undercover investigator about the women's willingness to fight, she pulled a knife and asked, "Why can't we be bad b-----s?"

The complaint unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn names Velentzas and her former roommate, Asia Siddiqui, as the targets of an undercover investigation into the thwarted homegrown terror plot.

The women, both from Queens, were held without bail Thursday after a brief court appearance where they spoke only to say they understood the charges against them. Velentzas wore a hijab and a dark dress, and Siddiqui donned a green T-shirt with a long-sleeved black shirt underneath and a dark long skirt.

"My client will enter a plea of not guilty, if and when there is an indictment. I know it's a serious case, but we're going to fight it out in court," said Siddiqui's lawyer, Thomas Dunn. Velentzas' attorney had no comment.

The women repeatedly expressed support for violent jihad during conversations with the undercover, who secretly recorded them, according to the complaint.

In 2009, Siddiqui, 31, wrote a poem in a magazine published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000...
that declared there is "no excuse to sit back and wait -- for the skies rain martyrdom," Sherlocks wrote in court papers. Velentzas, 28, called the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones...
one of her heroes and said she and Siddiqui were "citizens of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
," they said.

Since 2014, the pair plotted to build an bomb to use in a terrorist attack on American soil, the complaint says. They "researched and acquired some of the components of a boom-mobile, like the one used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; a fertilizer bomb, like the one used in the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City; and a pressure cooker bomb, like the one used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing," authorities wrote.

After two New York City coppers were bumped off in a patrol car in December, Velentzas told an undercover officer that the deaths showed it was easy to kill a police officer, according to the complaint. She said killing an officer was easier than buying food "because sometimes one has to wait in line to buy food," according to the complaint.

After the undercover officer mentioned that 25,000 officers had turned out for the first of the funerals for the two officers, Velentzas "complimented" the undercover for coming up with an attractive target and considered whether the other funeral was an appropriate target, according to the complaint.

The complaint suggests that authorities decided to make the arrests after Siddiqui came into "possession of multiple propane gas tanks, as well as instructions for how to transform propane tanks into bombs," and told the undercover she was "disinclined" to talk about her plans.

During a search of the defendants' homes early Thursday, agents recovered items including three gas tanks, a pressure cooker, fertilizer, handwritten notes on recipes for bomb making and jihadist literature, court papers say. They also found two machetes and two daggers.

"It is very, very important to note: there was never any imminent threat to our fellow New Yorkers," Mayor Bill de Blasio said when asked about the case. The plot, he added, "was undercut before it could turn into something dangerous."

Neighbors of Siddiqui said she and her brother lived in the basement of a red-brick three floor house, owned by their parents, who didn't live there.

"She was quiet, and I never thought she could do this," said Mohammad Shahidul Haque, a retired hospital lab tech.

Reuters adds:

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.

The women, former roommates in the city borough of Queens, had researched how to build an bomb and had read textbooks on electricity and watched online videos about soldering, it said.

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
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
, a Lion of Islam group that holds territory in Iraq and Syria. Pugh, 47, of Neptune, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
last month.

Link

Home Front: WoT

US Air Force veteran eyed IS service

2015-03-18

[ARABNEWS] A US Air Force veteran has been charged on two counts for trying to join Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
forces of Evil in Syria after being sacked as a plane mechanic, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Tairod Pugh, 47, from New Jersey, traveled from Egypt to ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
in January in an attempt to cross the border into Syria to join IS, but was intercepted and sent back to Egypt, prosecutors said.

After he was deported back to the US, American agents impounded his laptop and discovered he had been watching IS propaganda and browsing the Internet on how to infiltrate Syria. He was incarcerated
You have the right to remain silent...
on Jan. 16 and faces a maximum 35 years in prison if convicted of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

A federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted him on both counts and he is scheduled to appear before a magistrate Wednesday. His attempt to join Syrian gunnies came weeks after he was sacked from his most recent job as an airplane mechanic based in the Middle East, federal prosecutors said in Brooklyn.

He served previously in the US Air Force as an instrument specialist and was trained in aircraft engine, navigation and weapons systems maintenance, the prosecutors said.

US reports said Pugh served in the US Air Force from 1986 to 1990. "Born and raised in the US, Pugh allegedly turned his back on his country and attempted to travel to Syria in order to join a terrorist organization," said US Attorney Loretta Lynch.

Link

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