'Jihad Jane,' Terrorist 'Wannabe'

A profile of former Pennsburg resident Colleen LaRose says she converted to Islam in an Internet chat session and never attended a mosque.

Colleen "Jihad Jane" LaRose was an amateur terrorist "wannabe" who converted to Islam via instant message, got homesick just a few weeks into her alleged "jihad," never visited a mosque, and frequently botched the orders given to her by the radical Islamist taskmasters she met online. Those are some of the anecdotes in a new profile of the former Pennsburg resident by Reuters correspondent John Shiffman, who conducted LaRose's only media interview to date. LaRose pleaded guilty in February 2011 to charges related to a plot to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, whose cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in 2007 made him a target for radical Islamist groups. According to the first installment of a four-part series, LaRose's …

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Brian Rox

11:43 am on Saturday, December 8, 2012

^ Does that same logic apply to Christians? ^   more ›

Skygazer

Moonsighting

The appearance of the first crescent moon is crucial to the Muslim observation of Ramadan, which begins Friday

Friday is the beginning of the month of Ramadan for Muslims around the world. Contrary to what many non-Muslims believe, Ramadan is not an Islamic holiday or a religious observance. It's actually the name of the ninth month on the Islamic calendar.  As amateur astronomers and other skygazers know, Friday is also the day of July's first crescent moon. This is not a coincidence. More on that in a moment.  The reason Ramadan is important to Muslims is that it's the month in which the Prophet Muhammad is said to have begun receiving revelations from Allah (the Arabic name for God, also used by many Arab Christians). Those revelations are believed to have been recorded in the Quran, the Muslim holy book. During the month of Ramadan, as an …

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