Two ISIS-inspired women were arrested in New York City for allegedly planning a bomb attack, law enforcement said Thursday.
Noelle Velentzas and Aisa Siddiqui, both roommates from Queens, are accused of conspiring to launch a terror attack by making and detonating a bomb, police told CBS New York.
"Arrests were made by the JTTF and the NYPD in a national security investigation early this morning in New York City," the NYPD's John Miller told the station.
Velentzas, 28, and 31-year-old Siddiqui were obsessed with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and followed its propaganda on the Internet, Miller said. But the women don't appear to have had any contact with the group.
Court documents say Siddiqui, also known as "Najma Samaa," had several propane gas tanks she planned on turning into explosive devices, CBS New York reported. Her alleged accomplice also took an interest in pressure cookers following the Boston Marathon bombing, investigators said.
In conversations with an undercover agent, Valentzas lauded the 9/11 attacks and said conducting a suicide attack made one a martyr and guaranteed entrance into heaven, according to court records. She allegedly spoke of shooting police officers.
"If we get arrested, the police will point their guns at us from the back and maybe from the front, Valentzas allegedly said. "If we can get even one of their weapons, we can shoot them."
The arrests come in the midst of a law enforcement crackdown on suspected home-grown terrorists plotting attacks and seeking to leave the country to join ISIS. Miller hinted that other arrests may be on the horizon.
"There are always others in the pipeline, including after this case," he told CBS News.
Siddiqui and Valentzas, both U.S. citizens, are expected to appear in Brooklyn federal court later Thursday.
