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American Teenager Pleas Guilty to Conspiring to Help Islamic State

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Shannon Conley, a 19-year-old from the Denver suburb of Arvada, Colorado pled guilty to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization before a Denver District Court on September 10.

MOSCOW, September 11 (RIA Novosti) - Shannon Conley, a 19-year-old from the Denver suburb of Arvada, Colorado pled guilty to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization before a Denver District Court on September 10.

Court documents presented at the hearing showed that between February and April, 2014, “Conley and a co-conspirator did unlawfully work together…to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, especially al-Qaeda and its affiliates, including Al-Qaeda in Iraq”. Conley supported the organization that has since evolved into the self-proclaimed Islamic State, as noted in the FBI’s Denver office press release.

Conley met her co-conspirator Yousr Mouelhi on the Internet; he was a 32-year-old Tunisian fighting in Syria.  Mouelhi convinced Conley that Islam required “participation in violent jihad,” prosecutors said.

Conley and Mouelhi became engaged, and the teen planned to travel to Syria to join her fiancé, despite repeated attempts by the FBI to convince her not to do so. Conley was arrested at Denver International Airport on April 8, while attempting to board a flight to Turkey.

Conley apparently sought to obtain military training and skills; she joined the US Army Explorers to receive training in firearms and learn military tactics, and obtained a first aid certification from the National Rifle Association.

The reasons for Conley’s radicalization are unclear, although FBI agents found audio CDs by US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki among her belongings. An FBI agent told CBC Denver that this is not the first time an American woman has fallen for a ‘romanticized sales pitch’ to join the global jihad. Two American women, Coleen LaRose and Jamie Ramierez, had earlier been caught up in separate plots to kill a Swedish cartoonist whose drawings had angered Muslims. Both women were arrested and sentenced to prison. Each of them had become involved romantically online with Muslim foreigners.

Conley’s public defender Robert Pepin told reporters that reports of IS brutality and oppression had shocked and horrified her, and that “it was never her vision to have any role in any of that.”

As a condition of her plea, Conley will be required to share any information she has about other Americans suspected of aiding the IS. Given her cooperation, she faces a sentence of not more than five years in a federal prison, and a fine of up to $250,000. She will be sentenced in January, 2015.

The FBI and the US Department of Justice have tightened efforts to dissuade and disrupt attempts to join terrorist organizations overseas. Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi released a statement Wednesday noting that the organizations “are conducting targeted investigations of would-be travelers to Syria and have already prosecuted nearly a dozen individuals.”

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