Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV is running a four-part Reuters series on the story of “Jihad Jane”, the American woman who found herself neck deep in a plot to assassinate the editor behind the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

In this, the first part, the writer provides information about the miserable life Colleen LaRose had led, how she ‘converted’ to Islam, and how she was used by those seeking to take advantage of her outside-the-racial-profile appearance. So far, it’s a pitiable story, though all who are interviewed do agree that she was acting well outside the law. I’ll be interested in reading the rest of the story.

From abuse to a chat room, a ‘martyr’ is made – Jane’s Jihad
Reuters

“Kill him.”

The American who called herself Jihad Jane read the words on her computer screen. Colleen LaRose was fiddling on the Internet, passing time in her duplex near Philadelphia, when the call to martyrdom arrived from halfway around the world.

The order came from an al-Qaeda operative. The date: March 22, 2009.

This was it, she thought. Her chance. At 45, LaRose was ready to become somebody.

A compact woman with a seventh-grade education, LaRose was a recent convert to Islam. She found a place for herself quickly, raising money and awareness online for the plight of her Muslim brothers and sisters. They were underdogs, just like her.

During her darkest days, LaRose had endured incest, rape and prostitution.

She surrendered her life to drinking and drugs, from crack to crystal meth.

Now, if she accepted the order to kill, she would surrender her life to a higher power: Allah.
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