TerrorismTwo Queens, N.Y. women arrested for plotting propane tank bomb attacks in New York
Roommates Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, were arrested Thursday morning and charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States, according to federal prosecutors. FBI officials say both women, who live in Queens, New York, were radicalized by Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda. A complaint unsealed on Thursday says the women had been communicating with people affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. “The investigation has revealed that Velentzas espouses violent jihadist beliefs and has repeatedly expressed an interest in terrorist attacks committed within the United States,” the complaint stated.
Roommates Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, were arrested Thursday morning and charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States, according to federal prosecutors. FBI officials say both women, who live in Queens, New York, were radicalized by Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda. A complaint unsealed on Thursday says the women had been communicating with people affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
“The investigation has revealed that Velentzas espouses violent jihadist beliefs and has repeatedly expressed an interest in terrorist attacks committed within the United States,” the complaint stated.
According to CNN News, the pair told an undercover agent that they wanted to detonate a pressure cooker or a propane tank bomb somewhere in New York City. “Siddiqui stated that Velentzas has been obsessed with pressure cookers since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013,” read the complaint, later adding that Siddiqui “is currently in possession of multiple propane gas tanks, as well as instructions for how to transform propane tanks into explosive devices.”
Prosecutors said the women also “researched and acquired” components for a car bomb similar to the one used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a fertilizer bomb like the one used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
The New York Post reports that Siddiqui is a former friend of the late Samir Khan, a Queens resident who published an online magazine for al-Qaeda before being killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
In 2014 Velentzas allegedly “pulled a knife from her bra and demonstrated how to stab someone” during a meeting with Siddiqui and an undercover officer. In a 2014 conversation with the same undercover police officer, Velentzas discussed the 20 December murders of New York Police Department (NYPD) officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, saying their shootings “showed that it was easy to kill a police officer.” She added that “killing a police officer is easier than buying food, because sometimes one has to wait in line to buy food,” the complaint read.
Officials have not released the actual target location, but police reports made it clear that the public was never in any danger throughout the investigation. NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller said the arrests were part of a local and federal investigation. “What I can confirm is that arrests were made by the JTTF and NYPD in a national security investigation earlier this morning in New York City,” he said.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch said the women studied how to carry out what could have been a deadly attack. “We are committed to doing everything in our ability to detect, disrupt and deter attacks by homegrown violent extremists,” Lynch said. “As alleged, the defendants in this case carefully studied how to construct an explosive device to launch an attack on the homeland.” The women, who considered themselves as “citizens of Islamic State” appeared on Thursday afternoon in federal court in Brooklyn.
The arrests came just a week after authorities apprehended two cousins in Chicago in a terror plot which included an attack on an Illinois National Guard station and one cousin fleeing to Cairo, Egypt to join Islamic militants.
