2 women arrested on terror charges in New York

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Two women were arrested Thursday on charges they plotted to wage violent jihad by building a homemade bomb and using it for a Boston Marathon-type attack.

One of the women, Noelle Velentzas, had been “obsessed with pressure cookers since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013” and made jokes alluding to explosives after receiving one as a gift, according to a criminal complaint. And it says in a conversation with an undercover investigator about the women’s willingness to fight, she pulled a knife and asked, “Why can’t we be bad b-----s?”

The complaint unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn names Velentzas and her former roommate, Asia Siddiqui, as the targets of an undercover investigation into the thwarted homegrown terror plot.

The women, both from Queens, were held without bail after a brief court appearance where they spoke only to say they understood the charges against them. Velentzas wore a hijab and a dark dress, and Siddiqui donned a green T-shirt with a long-sleeved black shirt underneath and a dark long skirt.

“My client will enter a plea of not guilty, if and when there is an indictment. I know it’s a serious case, but we’re going to fight it out in court,” said Siddiqui’s lawyer, Thomas Dunn. Velentzas’ attorney had no comment.

The women repeatedly expressed support for violent jihad during conversations with the undercover agent, who secretly recorded them, according to the complaint.

In 2009, Siddiqui, 31, wrote a poem in a magazine published by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula that declared there is “no excuse to sit back and wait — for the skies rain martyrdom,” investigators wrote in court papers. Velentzas, 28, called Osama bin Laden one of her heroes and said she and Siddiqui were “citizens of the Islamic State,” they said.