Free Republic

Shannen Rossmiller, a former Montana judge whose late-night hunts for al-Qaeda on the Web led to the two largest terror convictions in U.S. history, announced yesterday that she would begin teaching others her arcane and dangerous craft.

U.S. to Offer Turkey Help on PKK The U.S. is to offer Turkey a package of measures to dissuade Ankara from mounting a large-scale military incursion into Iraq to attack PKK Kurdish guerrillas, who have killed scores of Turkish soldiers in recent weeks. Ahead of a meeting in Washington on Monday between President George W. Bush and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, U.S. officials said Ankara would have to get concrete American help to combat the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq from where it frequently launches attacks into Turkey. “Erdogan has to go back with the...

Al Qaeda 'Re-Emerging' in Pakistan Sanctuaries The U.S. military said Tuesday it expected Al Qaeda to continue its "re-emergence" in sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas from where it supported attacks in Afghanistan. Sanctuary was provided to Al Qaeda and Taliban rebels after Islamabad signed a peace deal with militants in a desperate attempt to quell the unrest in its federally administered areas in September 2006, a U.S. military official said. The militants called off the deal in July this year after Pakistani security forces raided a radical mosque in Islamabad where rebels had massed. Dozens were killed in those...

... She's been communicating with Michael Curtis Reynolds on the Web. He's like a great novel Rossmiller can't put down.Mastermind, narcissistic sociopath, Rossmiller pegs Reynolds, a Wilkes-Barre man who is writing in English on the all-Arabic Osama bin Laden Crew Web site. Guys like him creep me out."The plan is [to] recall ... [U.S.] troops home [from Iraq] as well as firing their boss," Reynolds writes. "Interested?"It's November 2005, and Reynolds seems to want to crash the U.S. government and end the Iraq war. He's asking al-Qaeda for money and personnel.Oh, dear G-d, please just let him be a blowhole...

Michael Curtis Reynolds, the Wilkes-Barre drifter who is looking for al-Qaeda funding to help him blow up the trans-Alaska and transcontinental pipelines, is now on Shannen Rossmiller's radar.Conspicuous as a barroom braggart, Reynolds is writing boldly - and in English - in the all-Arabic Osama bin Laden Crew chat room, making no pretense about his background or his mission: He's an American citizen out to destroy his country.Just like Ryan Anderson, Rossmiller says to herself, recalling another angry American, from 2003. Oh, please don't let him be another one like that. ...Having ensnared Anderson in an exchange of 30 e-mail...

SCRANTON, Pa. - Shannen Rossmiller isn't a terrorist. She just plays one on the Internet. In the wee hours of the morning, while her family sleeps, the former Montana judge goes online and assumes the identity of a Muslim extremist — the better to strike up conversations with actual terrorists and, she hopes, ferret out their plans to harm the United States and its allies. Then the 38-year-old former Miss Congeniality and married mother of three feeds the intelligence she gathers to the FBI. Her moonlighting as a volunteer terrorist hunter has brought down two suspects in the United States...

What happens when a mother of three and small town municipal judge decides to take on the online Jidhad? Shannen Rossmiller tells the story of how she helped unmask a number of malefactors, including some who were seeking to acquire Stinger missiles and finally track down a renegade in the US National Guard. Viewed from one perspective, it is a fascinating case study of the private citizen warrior, embarked on what Rossmiller called her own "counterJihad". "...Before 9-11, I had no experience with the Middle East or the Arabic language. I was a mother of three and a municipal judge...

Montana mother who is fighting al-Qa'eda from her sitting room By Francis Harris in Helena (Filed: 26/06/2006) Radical Islamists may not know it but their global jihad has more to fear from Shannen Rossmiller, an American mother-of-three, than from a squadron of F16s. The former cheerleader doesn't phrase it quite like that. That isn't her style. Shannen Rossmiller turned freelance spy after 9/11 Yet a summary of case histories and transcripts seen by The Daily Telegraph reveals that she has uncovered the whereabouts of al-Qa'eda fighters in the lawless highlands of Pakistan, shopped groups of would-be terrorists from Liverpool to...

Michael Curtis Reynolds says he's a patriot. Federal authorities say he's a terrorist. The FBI believes that the unemployed Wilkes-Barre man tried to conspire with al-Qaeda to wreck the American economy. Agents say Reynolds plotted to blow up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, a Pennsylvania pipeline, and a New Jersey refinery. The sensational allegations, disclosed in a federal transcript obtained by The Inquirer on Friday, reveal a convoluted plot that includes cyberspace intrigue, an elaborate FBI sting, and a clandestine money-drop on a deserted Idaho road. The case also involves a municipal judge from Montana who has devoted the last four years...

Federal agents contend that a Pennsylvania man tried to work with al Qaeda in a plot to blow up the Alaska pipeline, another pipeline in Pennsylvania and a refinery in New Jersey, according to a published report. Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, has not officially been charged with terrorism, but a prosecutor at a hearing said that Reynolds tried to "provide material aid to al Qaeda" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in its Sunday editions. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that a tip from Shannen Rossmiller - a judge from Conrad,...

Montana judge, 6 others use Web to snare suspects CONRAD, MONT. - By day, she’s the municipal judge of this tiny town, a wife and mother of three, but by moonlight Shannen Rossmiller is a spy. Then, Rossmiller — petite, blond and 34 — assumes one of several unlikely false identities, all angry, violent, Muslim men, nurturing hatred of the United States. In that guise, she combs the Internet through the late evening and early morning and sifts through the messages and declarations on extremist Islamic Web sites.During those hours, Rossmiller is on a quest that consumes hours of each...