A Colorado woman has been arrested for allegedly providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the FBI said in documents unsealed on Wednesday.
Shannon Maureen Conley, 19, is accused of attempting to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, aka ISIL or ISIS, the terrorist organization currently taking control over parts of Iraq and Syria.
The FBI says she was trying to travel to Syria to marry an ISIS member she met online. Once there, she intended to wage jihad -- but if not allowed to fight because she is a woman, she intended to use her skills as a nurse's aid to help Islamist fighters, the agency said in an affidavit cited by the Denver Channel.
The feds say they began investigating Conley in November 2013 after she was spotted on the campus of Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada taking notes.
Officials at the chapel, scene of a 2007 shooting in which two people were killed, became suspicious. They asked to see her notes, and then asked her to leave when she became confrontational and spoke of Islam, according to reports.
“If they think I’m a terrorist I’ll give them something to think I am," she reportedly said when later asked about the incident by members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The FBI says two agents made an "overt attempt to dissuade Conley from violent criminal activity and give her the opportunity to turn away from her intention to participate in supporting terrorist activities," the affidavit said. The agents also told her she would be subject to arrest if she intended to aid the fighters.
"When asked if she still wanted to carry out the plans, knowing they are illegal, Conley said that she does," the affidavit states.
The full text of the affidavit is below.
“It’s kind of surprising in a way. I don’t think you ever think someone has gone that far,” Faith Bible Chapel Senior Pastor George Morrison told CBS Denver.
Conley was arrested at the Denver airport in April after purchasing a one-way ticket to Turkey, but documents related to the case weren't unsealed until Wednesday.