Jihad Jane: The Irish Connection

LONDON (March 10) -- Seven Muslims, including an American woman, were arrested in Ireland on Tuesday for allegedly plotting with Pennsylvania housewife Colleen LaRose (aka Jihad Jane) to kill a Swedish cartoonist who sketched the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.

Police said the four men and three women were detained during dawn raids in the southern coastal counties of Waterford and Cork. The arrests marked the culmination of a five-month operation involving U.S., British, Swedish and Irish security agencies. It's believed that the international investigation was launched in October following the arrest of LaRose in Philadelphia. U.S. authorities only announced her indictment on charges of online terror Tuesday, once the seven suspects were in custody.

According to the Irish Independent, one female suspect has U.S. citizenship. She is thought to live with the ringleader -- a 49-year-old unemployed Algerian, who moved to Ireland a decade ago -- in the city of Cork. The other members of the group come from Algeria, Croatia, the Palestinian territories and Libya. Most have either been granted asylum in the country or were in the process of applying for asylum.


And Irish police today revealed that LaRose spent two weeks in Ireland last summer, when she met with the Algerian -- and possibly other members of the group -- in person. The American had previously only communicated to the Ireland-based Muslims on extremist web sites, where she detailed her assassination scheme.

The Department of Justice had previously announced that LaRose sent e-mails to several as-yet-unnamed co-conspirators in Europe and Asia, in which she detailed the assassination plot. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, she boasted to would-be accomplices that her all-American looks would help her evade the attention of security services, allowing her to get close to the cartoonist.

So far, Vilks has been remarkably cool about the whole affair. "I don't get upset about these things. And I regret nothing," he told the Irish Independent. "I have prepared in different ways, and I have an ax [in my house] in case someone should manage to get in through the window."

But then, Vilks, 64, has had a long time to get used to this sort of threat. Since his controversial sketch was first published in Swedish daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007, he's lived under constant police protection and received dozens of death threats. He's has even had a $100,000 bounty put on his head by an al-Qaida-aligned group. (Any portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad -- positive or negative -- is strictly forbidden in Islam.)

Vilks doesn't expect these attempts on his life to stop anytime. "The barks of those roundabout dogs will never fall silent," he said, referring to his provocative picture.