March 14, 2010 01:48 AM UTC

Colorado's Own "Jihad Jane"?

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• by: redstateblues

SUNDAY UPDATE: Paulin-Ramirez was released by Irish authorities.

UPDATE: CNN is reporting that the two women were connected.

The New York Times reports on this developing story:

LEADVILLE, Colo. – An American woman, who family members fear may have become a radicalized Muslim, was detained in Ireland this week in connection with a plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist.

The woman, identified by her mother as Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, had become increasingly cut off from her family here and had been spending more time on the Internet since converting to Islam around last Easter, her relatives said.

After dressing in traditional headscarves, praying at a mosque in Denver and meeting with associates she had likely befriended online, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez – accompanied by her then 5-year-old son, Christian Carreon – had gone to live in Ireland with her in October, her mother, Christine Mott, said in an interview at her home here on Saturday. She said that she had been told this last week that her daughter had been detained in Ireland, and that her grandson was in the custody of Irish officials.

The story sounds eerily similar to one reported earlier this week on a Pennsylvania woman who frequented radical Muslim internet chat rooms, and was allegedly part of a plot to kill the same Swedish cartoonist Paulin-Ramirez was plotting to assassinate. The woman, Colleen LaRose of Philadelphia, PA, referred to herself as “Jihad Jane.”

It’s not yet clear whether these cases are part of a concerted effort by terror groups to reach out to blond-haired, green-eyed women with fair skin, or if the similarities between these two cases are purely superficial; but if that is indeed their strategy, it could become a grave challenge for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. At the very least, these people do not fit the typical profile of suspects looking to commit acts of terrorism in the name of Islamic fundamentalism.

Paulin-Ramirez is the second Colorado resident in the last year to be arrested for alleged terrorist activities. Najibullah Zazi, a former DIA shuttle driver, plead guilty last month to charges related to a planned attack of New York City subways.