after undercover investigators determined they were
trying to build a homemade bomb in New-york, prosecutors said.
The public was never in danger, authorities said.
There is evidence the women looked at Islamic State
group propaganda on the internet, prosecutors say,
but authorities don't believe they had direct contact
with the group.
John Miller, the head of the New York Police
Department's counterterrorism operation, said they
were arrested in the borough of Queens. They are
expected to appear in Brooklyn federal court later in
the day.
The criminal complaint names the women as former
roommates Noelle Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui, both
of Queens.
It says that from around May 2013 to the present,
they conspired to use a weapon of mass destruction,
an explosive device, somewhere in the United States.
Siddiqui possessed propane gas tanks and
instructions for how to transform them into
explosive devices, the complaint said.
Velentzas "expressed violent jihadist ideology" and
repeatedly expressed interest in terrorist attacks
committed in the US; she praised the 9/11 attacks
and said being a martyr through a suicide attack
guarantees entrance into heaven, authorities said.
Velentzas had been "obsessed with pressure
cookers since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013"
and made jokes alluding to explosives after
receiving one as a gift, it said.
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