Jessica Bowie, a 35-year-old woman from upstate New York, is now facing terrorism charges after authorities allege she converted to Islam, swore allegiance to the Islamic State group and plotted to bomb the State Capitol building â just weeks before the U.S. will mark 25 years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
According to the FBI, she became a Muslim five years ago and took on a new name, Aisha Saif.
The FBI arrested Bowie after she allegedly enlisted a group of confidential informants in her plot, thinking they were ISIS handlers, under the impression she was arranging for them to turn bomb-making materials she’d purchased into an explosive device and to provide her a handgun.
Bowie allegedly praised the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks that killed 2,977 people on Sept. 11, 2001, according to court documents.
The federal criminal complaint has few details about her alleged embrace of terrorism from before May 2026, but authorities say she was radicalized at some point online.
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She had also allegedly lost multiple social media accounts for violating their terms of service with her posts, according to the criminal complaint â in separate posts in May, she allegedly wrote about poisoning “infidels” and “praise be to Allah for September 11th.” By the end of the month, she’d allegedly sworn allegiance to ISIS.
“The key with these sorts of cases is the initial lead,” said Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor with experience working counter-terrorism cases. “This can come in a number of ways. We criticize social media plenty, but the fact that she was repeatedly banned on these platforms could have been a crucial pointer.”
By July, according to the complaint, she was allegedly using encrypted apps to post support for radical Islamic terror and anti-American rhetoric.
On July 16, she allegedly told an FBI informant that she had begun thinking about “Jehad” more seriously over the past several months. She was also allegedly posting online about how she was sharing ISIS propaganda and attempting to recruit.
In July and August, Bowie allegedly made five visits to scout the State Capitol.
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On Aug. 5, photos released by the Justice Department allegedly show her buying bomb-making materials at a Ren
