"Jihad Jane" Pleads Not Guilty To Terrorism

(Reuters) - A Pennsylvania woman who called herself "Jihad Jane" pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges of providing material support to terrorists and conspiring to kill in a foreign country.

Colleen LaRose appeared in federal court in Philadelphia accused of plotting with others over the Internet to kill a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Mohammed in a way that was offensive to Muslims, and of wanting to become a martyr to Islam.

LaRose, 46, from Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, has been in custody since October. A grand jury indictment against her, unsealed on March 9, says she recruited men online to wage "violent jihad" or holy war, in South Asia and Europe.

Diminutive LaRose appeared in court shackled at the ankles and wearing in green prison overalls, with her blond hair in braids. She replied "not guilty" when asked to plead after being read the charges by a court official, but otherwise made no comment during the brief proceeding...

First 'JihadJane,' Now Colorado Woman Held In Death Plot

Federal officials confirmed Saturday that a second suburban American woman had been apprehended in connection with a plot to kill a Swedish artist who angered the Muslim world with a derogatory drawing of the prophet Mohammad.

But authorities cautioned that Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a blond-haired mother, may have been motivated by love for an Algerian Muslim man rather than by terrorist urges when she traveled to Ireland for a rendezvous in September.

Paulin-Ramirez, 31, of suburban Denver, was taken into custody by Irish police last week on the same day that U.S. prosecutors unsealed a criminal indictment against another fair-haired American woman who allegedly used the Internet handle "JihadJane" to recruit people to further the plot...