A woman planned to attack New York’s state capitol in Albany on behalf of the Islamic State before federal agents thwarted the plot, officials said Thursday.
Federal prosecutors charged Jessica Bowie, 35, with providing material support to a terror group in the foiled plot, which she had discussed with an FBI informant who was posing as an ISIS affiliate.
Authorities also said Ms. Bowie, who converted to Islam five years earlier and went by the Islamic name “Aisha Sarif,” had expressed support for terrorism on several different online accounts between May and July.
Federal agents arrested the suspect Wednesday after she obtained what she believed was an explosive device that could be set off inside the capitol building and kill state lawmakers.
“The FBI detected and stopped an alleged plot to attack the New York State Capitol and kill elected officials,” Operations Director Matt Fodor of the FBI National Security Branch said. “According to the criminal complaint, the defendant in this case swore allegiance to ISIS and wanted to follow up with additional horrific acts of terrorism.”
Charging documents said Ms. Bowie began communicating with an FBI informant last month, and soon shared her desire to target the statehouse in Albany in order to “harm the enemies of god.”
Ms. Bowie lived less than two miles from the capitol, the filing said, and took photos of the building on five occasions between July 21 and Aug. 9 for her own reconnaissance. The suspect also allegedly said she wanted to launch her attack on the day the most legislators were present.
“I want to destroy as much of the building as possible and kill the senators while they are meeting,” read one of Ms. Bowie’s alleged messages, cited in the complaint.
She added that she wanted the attack to “have a affect on the American system. And destroy some of the taghut,” an Arabic word that Islamists use for anyone who doesn’t praise and obey Allah.
In a separate exchange, she told an FBI informant that “Blowing kafirs [non-Muslims] brains out is beautiful.”
Her plan involved detonating the explosive device and then fleeing to an ISIS-controlled part of Syria, prosecutors said.
Court documents said Ms. Bowie expressed remorse about the possibility of harming Muslims, pregnant women and children in the blast, but that she hoped Allah would forgive her.
An FBI informant gave Ms. Bowie money to purchase bomb-making materials on Aug. 5, the complaint said, and then she met with the informant days later.
The filing said she met with the informants Wednesday where they gave her a dummy bomb and phony handgun. Ms. Bowie was arrested shortly afterward.
“There’s no helping me, you guys know enough, there’s no helping me, I’m…going to prison for the rest of my life,” she told investigators, according to the court papers. “Material support is up to 20 years in prison, I already Googled it before, I know I’m going to jail.”
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