NYC women arrested on charges they plotted to build bomb

NEW YORK -- Two women were arrested Thursday on charges they plotted to wage violent jihad by building a homemade bomb and using it for a Boston Marathon-type terror attack.

One of the women, Noelle 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, according to a criminal complaint.

The complaint unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn names Velentzas and her former roommate, Asia Siddiqui, as the targets of an undercover investigation into a homegrown terror plot.

The women were held without bail after a brief court appearance at which they spoke only to say they understood the charges against them.

"My client will enter a plea of not guilty, if and when there is an indictment. I know it's a serious case but we're going to fight it out in court," said Siddiqui's lawyer, Thomas Dunn. Velentzas' attorney had no comment.

The women repeatedly expressed support for violent jihad during conversations with an undercover investigator wearing a wire, according to a complaint.

In 2009, Siddiqui, 31, wrote a poem in a magazine published by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula that declared there is "no excuse to sit back and wait -- for the skies rain martyrdom," investigators wrote in court papers.

Velentzas, 28, called Osama bin Laden one of her heroes and said she and Siddiqui were "citizens of the Islamic State," they said.

Since 2014, the pair plotted to build an explosive device to use in a terrorist attack on American soil, the complaint states.