Terror
Indiana Grandma on Watchlist
By Jana Winter
Published December 21, 2010
| FoxNews.com
PrintEmailShareComments A 46-year-old, blue-eyed grandmother and U.S. citizen from Indianapolis, Indiana is being monitored by international law enforcement who are concerned that she’ll become the next ‘Jihad Jane,’ FoxNews.com has learned.
Intelligence sources told FoxNews.com that the Muslim-convert, Kathie Smith, married a known German jihadist on the U.S. no fly list—and that she’s become increasingly violent in her online anti-American, pro-terrorist rhetoric. She also has been training in martial arts—and was taken to court for still owing an Indiana Karate instructor thousands of dollars.
On Facebook, YouTube and Islamist forums Smith—now known as Zabaida—has posted videos by Anwar al Awlaki, written in support of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and suicide attacks while repeatedly calling for jihad against the West and the deaths of American citizens and members of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
On MySpace she wrote, “As salamu alaikum akhi.. it is time for Jihad and it is now Fard ayn for ALL Muslims whether their in the United Snakes or else where...Insha'Allah!!!!”
Intelligence sources tell FoxNews.com she returned to Germany on Dec. 6 to visit her husband, but her current whereabouts are unclear.
Law enforcement is concerned that she’s gone operational after being radicalized by her husband and is or will soon be providing material support to help her husband plan terrorist attacks against the U.S. and is rallying support from within the U.S. and elsewhere to help—which is exactly what Philadelphia native Colleen LaRose “Jihad Jane” was charged with.
In an ongoing and lengthy email exchange with FoxNews.com, Smith, writing from an unknown location, alternatively defended her online postings, denied being anti-American, called the Sept. 11 attacks an inside job, the U.S. a terrorist organization and invited this reporter to listen to the sermons of Anwar al Awlaki.
Earlier this month, Smith appeared alongside her husband, known online as Salahudin Ibn Ja'far, in a video uploaded on his YouTube account that featured a montage of terrorist propaganda and leaders.
It also features members of the German cell of Islamic Jihad Union, a U.S. designated terror organization, who were convicted in March for plotting terror attacks three years ago against U.S. targets in Germany, including Ramstein Air Force Base, and calls for jihad against the West.
(In an email to FoxNews.com Smith described the men in the video—known members of Islamic Jihad Union convicted in terror plots against U.S. —as childhood friends of her husband.)
Indiana Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Emily Norcross told FoxNews.com that the video is being investigated by the Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center, a joint agency counterterror center, and would passed along to appropriate enforcement for further investigation.
Norcross recommended contacting the FBI for more information.
FBI spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said:
“As you’re aware, FBI and DOJ policy precludes us from confirming or denying the existence of an investigation.”
In the nearly six-minute video, Smith and her husband appear wielding machine guns and swords, posing amid a montage of known terrorists. Included in the photo array is an Anwar al Awlaki sermon album cover, photos of convicted Ramstein plotters Daniel Martin Schneider, Eric Breininger and Houssain Al-Malla, among other men who appear to have left for jihad.
In an email to FoxNews.com, Smith said of the Ramstein plotters featured in her video:
“The so-called "jihadists" you have mentioned are actually personal friends of my husband from childhood. In the video he was expressing his love and gratitude to his friends, who have died fighting for freedom. Just like any other American or European citizen who displays pictures of soldiers who have died on their videos. There is no difference in gratitude and love. It is just that your government has deemed these noble men as "terrorists" because they are not on the same side. Least us not forget the Mujahideen who fought the Russians for the US. They were deemed "heroes" and lead by Osama Bin Laden at that time, and now because the government says so..they are "terrorists.””
Intelligence sources tell FoxNews.com that the see Smith’s increasingly hostile online rhetoric as a sign of radicalization and fear she as traveled to Germany to
provide material support to her husband’s terrorist plots—and that she and her husband may be on their way to jihadist training camps in Pakistan.
On Facebook, Smith “likes” Anwar Awlaki, is friends with Sheikh Faisal, the spiritual leader of Revolution Muslim; Yousef al-Khatab, Revolution Muslim’s co-founder; Ansar al Jundullah, the group tied to suicide bombings earlier this month in Iran; supporters of Al Shabaab. Her pro-jihadist postings are numerous.
But in email messages, Smith told FoxNews.com she was just speaking her mind.
“I am exercising my right, as an American citizen to freedom of speech, religion, and the right to bare arms. I have the right in America to say what ever I want. That is what makes America so great, right?”
Her husband posted in support of Usama bin Laden and Anwar al Awlaki, and earlier this month posted videos including one claiming to show exercises at a Taliban training camp in Pakistan, and another outlining orders for the wives of jihadist soldiers who go off to fight.
Smith wrote via email:
“I live a simple life, a life where I fear Allah first and try hard to do what is right for mankind. I am not some "horribly misguided, or brainwashed" individual. I have lived a long life and have seen many things. And I will always stand up for what is right, no matter who is trying to say the contrary.
“The US and its Ally's are abusers. They live only for the almighty dollar and power. I must ask you to think of it this way. When you are an abuses woman, you are either going to lay down and take it. Or your going to get up and fight the abuser. The Muslim community has been abused for far too long…Does this sound like Democracy to you or the American way? I would hope not but it is sad but true. And the American population needs to stand up to such tyrany.
“As a human being with a conscious, I can not idly stand by and watch "innocent" people being tortured and genocide which is what is happening to the Islamic world. This includes Palistine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indoneasia, Somaila to name a few.”
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