US' "JihadJane" pleads guilty to terror charges

An American woman who called herself "JihadJane" pleaded guilty Tuesday to terrorism-related charges stemming from a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist.

Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Colleen LaRose, 47, simply replied "yes" when she was asked by judge Petrese Tucker if she was now pleading guilty, after first denying the charges last year.

She pleaded guilty to terrorism, plotting to kill in a foreign country, lying to the FBI and attempted identity theft -- charges for which she could face life imprisonment.

LaRose was arrested in October 2009 in a plot to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who unleashed a storm of protests from Muslims with his cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed seen as insulting to Islam.

U.S. authorities have said the Pennsylvania resident, who told on her MySpace page how she converted to Islam, spent more than a year networking with would-be attackers around the world.

Justice Department prosecutors said LaRose, who is from Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, used online pseudonyms such as "Jihad Jane," "Fatima LaRose," "ExtremeSister4Life" and "SisterOFTerror."

They said she used multiple e-mail and YouTube accounts, other websites and various online usernames to publish violent jihadist literature and videos, to raise funds for militants and recruit others.

She sought to recruit men and women online, to raise money and even agreed to carry out the murder of a Swedish resident, pledging "only death will stop me," the indictment charged.

The Justice Department unsealed the indictment against LaRose in March 2010, just hours after Irish police arrested seven people accused of plotting to kill Vilks.

An al-Qaeda-linked group has placed a 100,000-dollar (74,000-euro) bounty on his head in response to a cartoon he drew depicting the prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog.

LaRose had allegedly bragged in one email that she could go anywhere undetected, saying it was "an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for" jihad.

According to the indictment LaRose posted a comment on YouTube in 2008 that she was "desperate to do something somehow to help" the suffering Muslim people.

The rash of cases of so-called home-grown terrorists is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States.

LaRose's case was seen as an indication of an alarming new development in which militants were drawn not from Muslim immigrant communities but from Americans born and raised in the United States.

A second woman, and a friend of LaRose, was also charged in the case of the terror suspect after she flew back to the United States and surrendered to authorities.

Jamie Paulin Ramirez, 31, a former Colorado resident, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, the department said in a statement.

The Department of Justice said in April Ramirez had traveled with LaRose "to and around Europe to participate in and in support of violent jihad."