New York City Terror Plot 2015: 2 Women Arrested, Charged With U.S. Terror Plot

Two female residents of Queens, New York City, were arrested by the F.B.I. Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts in the U.S.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch identified the suspects as Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31. They are accused of planning to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property in the U.S.

If convicted, they face a possible sentence of life in prison.

The criminal complaint was ordered unsealed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Viktor Pohorelsky of the Eastern District of New York. The two appeared in a court hearing on Thursday.

According to the complaint, Velentzas and Siddiqui were former roommates who have expressed support for violent jihad.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice said, Siddiqui published a poem in an al-Qaeda magazine in the Arabian peninsula that urged readers to wage jihad and declared that there is "[n]o excuse to sit back and wait – for the skies rain martyrdom."

Velentzas, who regards al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden as her hero, declared that she and Siddiqui are "citizens of the Islamic State" or ISIS.

Two weeks ago, Velentzas stated that she did not understand why people had to travel overseas to engage in jihad when there more chances of "pleasing Allah" in the U.S.

In the complaint, F.B.I. special agent Nicholas Hanak said Velentzas praised the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks in the U.S. and she "stated that being a martyr through a suicide attack guarantees entrance into heaven."

Since August 2014, the two allegedly plotted to construct an explosive device to use in a terrorist attack in the U.S.

They researched and acquired components of a car bomb, a fertilizer bomb and a pressure cooker bomb like the one used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The women also expressed support for beheadings of Western journalists and others by the ISIS, the complaint said.

Since last summer, they read textbooks on electricity, watched online videos about soldering and read "The Anarchist Cookbook," a book with instructions on building homemade explosives, it said.

They looked for supplies such as wiring and chemicals in a pharmacy and a Home Depot store, the complaint said.

Their plans were uncovered after an undercover officer befriended and met with the two suspects.

Hanak said Velentzas stated that if arrested she would try to grab a weapon and die as a martyr. Velentzas also described how easy it would be to kill a policeman. She also showed Siddiqui and the agent how to stab someone with a knife that she carried in her bra.

Siddiqui, on the other hand, possessed explosive devices including propane gas tanks and instructions for assembling explosive devices.

Lynch, who is President Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. attorney general, said the government is "committed to doing everything in our ability to detect, disrupt and deter attacks by homegrown violent extremists."

"As alleged, the defendants in this case carefully studied how to construct an explosive device to launch an attack on the homeland," she said.

Also on Thursday, Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, a U.S. citizen who trained with al-Qaeda in Pakistan, appeared in Brooklyn federal court on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

The F.B.I. said Farekh, who had been deported from Pakistan to the United States and arrested, conspired to provide personnel to be used by the Islamist militant group in support of efforts to kill U.S. citizens and members of the U.S. military abroad.