Federal agents arrested and charged a Denver teenage girl for conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist organisation, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, authorities said Wednesday.
Shannon Maureen Conley, 19, was to board a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, at the Denver airport in April when FBI agents arrested her. She was allegedly travelling to Turkey via a connecting flight from Frankfurt and then to Syria.
A criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Colorado states that Conley met an ISIL member, only identified as Y.M. in court papers, online in 2013. The document reads that they both "shared their view of Islam as requiring participation in violent jihad against any non-believers," and Y.M. told her he was an active member of ISIL, reports Reuters.
Conley's parents told investigators her suitor was a 32-year-old Tunisian man. Conley, a certified nurse's aide in Colorado and a converted Muslim, told the officials that she planned to meet Y.M. in Syria and live with him as his wife and as a camp nurse near the border of Turkey.
"When Conley told the suitor she wants to provide his camp with medical services and training, he told her that was good because they needed more nurses," the statement read, according to KARN newsRADIO. "Conley stated that she was aware that her plans were potentially illegal and she could possibly get arrested, and therefore she has no intention to return to the U.S."
"Conley mentioned an incident where an individual was arrested for attempting to go fight in Syria. She told [investigators] there was nothing they could do to change her mind and that she was still going, although she admitted, 'I know things can go terribly wrong.' When asked if she would engage in actual combat on the battlefield, Conley said, 'If it was absolutely necessary, then yes. I wouldn't like it...but I would do it,'" according to the document.
In November, Conley first came under the scanner after a pastor and security director at an Arvada church alerted the authorities about her suspicious behavior. In December she told FBI agents that she had joined the U.S. Army Explorer for training in military tactics and firearms.
Before her arrest, Conley, who also goes by the name Halima, was interviewed by the FBI seven times over the course of five months.
According to Jeff Dorschner, a Department of Justice spokesman, a status hearing date was set for June 26 at which the judge ordered the documents in the case to be unsealed. She remains in the custody of U.S. Marshals. If convicted she may face up o 15 years in prison.
The sectarian wars in Syria and Iraq have attracted the so-called jihadis from various countries. In May, the U.S. officials confirmed that a Florida man, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, was the first known American to have participated and carried out a suicide bombing in Syria on behalf of al Qaeda.
FBI director James Comey had said in May that more Americans were joining the civil war in Syria.
About 9,000 to 11,000 foreign fighters have flooded into Syria in the past 3 years and most of them are from neighboring countries.
