Who is Shannon Conley? All-American Girl who Dreamt of Jihad

A 19-year-old woman from Arvada, Colorado has been arrested by the FBI at Denver International Airport, as she was boarding a flight to Turkey to join rebels of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on the border with Syria.

According to FBI documents released this week, Shannon Maureen Conley – a certified nurse aide who had joined a military training course to learn US army tactics – told officials who questioned her that she wanted to use her training to help Isis militants.

In a separate interview Conley told the FBI, "Jihad is the only answer to correct the wrongs against the Muslim world."

She also said she "liked the idea of guerrilla warfare because she could do it alone."

Convert to Islam

Conley attracted the attention of the FBI in November 2013, after the pastor of Arvada's Faith Bible Chapel had spotted ther taking notes at the church's main campus on several occasions. When Conley was asked by the church staff to show her notes, she refused.

Conley - who converted to Islam - explained to the FBI that she initially went to the chapel to meet people of other faiths.

She said: "If they think I'm a terrorist, I'll give them something to think I am."

My daughter's an extremist

According to the FBI documents, Conley wanted to marry a 32-year-old Tunisian man - believed to be working for Isis - she had met online.

Her parents were against the marriage.

Conley's father, John, told the FBI that his daughter "believed she, as a Muslim, needed to marry young and be confrontational in her support of Islam."

He said that he once walked in his daughter's room while she was speaking with her boyfriend on Skype.

The man asked John for his blessing for the couple to marry, but John refused. John also said that her daughter's views on Islam "were far more extreme than he had previously thought."

One-way ticket to Turkey

Neighbours in Arvada told KDVR that Conley – the youngest of four daughters - had changed.

"I would see her in shorts and then all the sudden she started wearing those [Islamic] clothes maybe six months after they moved here," said Brenda Herrera.

On her facebook page, Conley, who used the Islamic name of Halima, posted contents about Islam and quotes from the Koran.

Conley shared a clip about British women joining the jihad in Syria.

In April, John Conley called an FBI agent and reported that he'd found her daughter's one-way ticket to Turkey.

When the FBI stopped Conley at the airport, they found in her luggage several CDs and DVDs labeled "Anwar al-Awlaki," a senior al-Qaida leader and recruiter who was killed by a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011. Agents also found a folder with materials about providing first aid in the field.