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A Syrian Kurdish refugee child from the Kobani area holds laundry on a cold morning at a camp in Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, on Monday, November 17. Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab, has been under assault by extremists of the Islamic State group since mid-September and is being defended by Kurdish fighters. ISIS has been advancing in Iraq and Syria as it seeks to create an Islamic caliphate in the region.
Smoke rises from the Syrian town of Kobani following airstrikes by the U.S. led coalition on the Turkey-Syria border on November 17.
A Syrian Kurdish refugee child from the Kobani area holds on to a fence at a camp in Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, on Sunday, November, 16.
People in Suruc, Turkey, watch smoke rise near the Syrian border during clashes between ISIS members and armed groups on Thursday, November 13. ISIS has been advancing in Iraq and Syria as it seeks to create an Islamic caliphate in the region.
A bomb (upper left) falls on an ISIS position in Kobani, Syria. during an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on Saturday, November 8. ISIS militants and Syrian Kurdish fighters have been battling for control of the city near the Turkish border, and the United States and several Arab nations have been bombing ISIS targets to take out the group's ability to command, train and resupply its fighters.
Iraqi military forces take up position in Jurf al-Sakher, south of Baghdad, on November 8.
Fire and smoke rise from the Syrian city of Kobani following airstrikes against the ISIS militant group on Thursday, October 30.
Iraqi special forces search a house in Jurf al-Sakhar, Iraq, on October 30 after retaking the area from ISIS.
Smoke rises during fighting in Kobani on Monday, October 27.
ISIS militants stand near the site of an airstrike near the Turkey-Syria border on Thursday, October 23.
An explosion rocks Kobani during a reported car-bomb attack by ISIS militants on Monday, October 20.
People watch Kobani from a hill near the Turkey-Syria border on October 20.
Kurdish fighters walk to positions as they fight ISIS forces in Kobani on Sunday, October 19.
A U.S. Air Force plane flies above Kobani on Saturday, October 18.
Heavy smoke rises in Kobani following an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on Saturday, October 18.
Cundi Minaz, a female Kurdish fighter, is buried in a cemetery in the southeastern Turkish town of Suruc on Tuesday, October 14. Minaz was reportedly killed during clashes with ISIS militants in nearby Kobani.
Turkish police officers secure a basketball stadium in Suruc on October 14. Some Syrian Kurds have been held there since crossing from Syria into Turkey. Tens of thousands of people have fled Kobani, known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab, to escape ISIS.
Kiymet Ergun, a Syrian Kurd, celebrates in Mursitpinar, Turkey, after an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition in Kobani on Monday, October 13.
Smoke rises from Kobani on Sunday, October 12.
Syrian Kurds from Kobani stand outside the grounds of a refugee camp in Suruc on Saturday, October 11.
Alleged ISIS militants stand next to an ISIS flag atop a hill in Kobani on Monday, October 6.
In this photo released by the U.S. Air Force on Saturday, October 4, a U.S. Navy jet is refueled in Iraqi airspace after conducting an airstrike against ISIS militants.
A Kurdish Peshmerga soldier who was wounded in a battle with ISIS is wheeled to the Zakho Emergency Hospital in Duhuk, Iraq, on Tuesday, September 30.
Iraqi Shiite militiamen aim their weapons during clashes with ISIS militants in Jurf al-Sakhar on Sunday, September 28.
Syrian Kurds wait near a border crossing in Suruc as they wait to return to their homes in Kobani on Sunday, September 28. Tens of thousands of people have fled Kobani, known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab, to escape ISIS.
Syrian Kurds wait behind border fences to cross into Suruc on September 28.
Tomahawk missiles, intended for ISIS targets in Syria, fly above the Persian Gulf after being fired by the USS Philippine Sea in this image released by the U.S. Navy on Tuesday, September 23.
Time magazine, the protests were over Turkey's temporary decision to close the border with Syria." border="0" height="360" id="articleGalleryPhoto0028" width="640"/>Turkish Kurds clash with Turkish security forces during a protest near Suruc on Monday, September 22. According to Time magazine, the protests were over Turkey's temporary decision to close the border with Syria.
Syrian Kurds fleeing ISIS militants wait behind a fence in Suruc on Sunday, September 21.
A elderly man is carried after crossing the Syria-Turkey border near Suruc on Saturday, September 20.
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter launches mortar shells toward ISIS militants in Zumar, Iraq, on Monday, September 15.
An ISIS flag flies on the other side of a bridge at the front line of fighting between ISIS and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Rashad, Iraq, on Thursday, September 11.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reads on a flight en route to Iraq on Wednesday, September 10. Kerry traveled to the Mideast to discuss ways to bolster the stability of the new Iraqi government and combat ISIS.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire at ISIS militant positions from their position on the top of Mount Zardak, east of Mosul, Iraq, on Tuesday, September 9.
An Iraqi fighter jet flies over Amerli, Iraq, on September 3. Amerli had been under siege by ISIS militants.
Iraqi volunteer fighters celebrate breaking the Amerli siege on Monday, September 1. ISIS militants had surrounded Amerli, 70 miles north of Baquba, Iraq, since mid-June.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces stand guard at their position in the Omar Khaled village west of Mosul on Sunday, August 24.
Kurdish Peshmergas fight to regain control of the town of Celavle, in Iraq's Diyala province, on August 24.
retook the dam from ISIS militants on August 18. A breach of the dam would have been catastrophic for millions of Iraqis who live downstream from it." border="0" height="360" id="articleGalleryPhoto0039" width="640"/>Peshmerga fighters stand guard at Mosul Dam in northern Iraq on Thursday, August 21. With the help of U.S. military airstrikes, Kurdish and Iraqi forces retook the dam from ISIS militants on August 18. A breach of the dam would have been catastrophic for millions of Iraqis who live downstream from it.
Displaced Iraqis receive clothes from a charity at a refugee camp near Feeshkhabour, Iraq, on Tuesday, August 19.
A fighter with Kurdish Peshmerga forces battles ISIS militants near Mosul on Monday, August 18.
Peshmerga fighters inspect the remains of a car that reportedly belonged to ISIS militants and was targeted by a U.S. airstrike in the village of Baqufa, north of Mosul, on August 18.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire at ISIS in Khazair, Iraq, on Thursday, August 14.
Volunteers of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society unload boxes of goods before distributing them August 14 to families who fled from ISIS.
From the flight deck of the USS George H.W. Bush, which is in the Persian Gulf, two U.S. fighter jets take off for a mission in Iraq on Monday, August 11. U.S. President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes against Islamic militants and food drops for Iraqis who are trapped by the militants.
Aziza Hamid, a 15-year-old Iraqi girl, cries for her father while she and some other Yazidi people are flown to safety Monday, August 11, after a dramatic rescue operation at Iraq's Mount Sinjar. A CNN crew was on the flight, which took diapers, milk, water and food to the site where as many as 70,000 people were trapped by ISIS. But only a few of them were able to fly back on the helicopter with the Iraqi Air Force and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.
Thousands of Yazidis are escorted to safety by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and a People's Protection Unit in Mosul on Saturday, August 9.
Iraqi Shiite volunteers who have joined government forces to fight ISIS take part in a training session near Basra, Iraq, on Thursday, August 7.
Thousands of Yazidi and Christian people flee Mosul on Wednesday, August 6, after the latest wave of ISIS advances.
A Baiji oil refinery burns after an alleged ISIS attack in northern Selahaddin, Iraq, on Thursday, July 31.
A Syrian rebel fighter lies on a stretcher at a makeshift hospital in Douma, Syria, on Wednesday, July 9. He was reportedly injured while fighting ISIS militants.
Iraqis who fled fighting in the cities of Mosul and Tal Afar try to enter a temporary displacement camp in Khazair on Wednesday, July 2.
Peshmerga fighters check cars at the entrance of a temporary displacement camp in Khazair on Thursday, June 26.
Kurdish Peshmerga take their positions behind a wall on the front line of the conflict with ISIS militants in Tuz Khormato, Iraq, on Wednesday, June 25.
Peshmerga fighters clean their weapons at a base in Tuz Khormato on June 25.
New army recruits gather in Najaf, Iraq, on Wednesday, June 18, following a call for Iraqis to take up arms against Islamic militant fighters.
An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter lands on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, June 17.
Newly recruited Iraqi volunteer fighters take part in a training session in Karbala, Iraq, on June 17.
Members of ISIS prepare to execute soldiers from Iraq's security forces in this image, one of many reportedly posted by the militant group online. CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the images.
Iraqi men chant slogans outside of an army recruiting center to volunteer for military service Thursday, June 12, in Baghdad.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces, along with Iraqi special forces, deploy their troops and armored vehicles outside of Kirkuk, Iraq, on June 12.
Children stand next to a burnt vehicle during clashes between Iraqi security forces and ISIS militants in Mosul on Tuesday, June 10.
Civilians from Mosul escape to a refugee camp near Irbil, Iraq, on June 10.
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- Heather Coffman, of Henrico County, is charged with lying to federal agents
- Coffman caught the attention of the FBI through her Facebook activity
- They say she posted positively about ISIS, later met with agents to recruit for ISIS
(CNN) -- After seven months of investigation and undercover work, federal officials have arrested a Virginia woman and accused her of lying to federal agents about involvement with the terrorist group ISIS.
Heather Coffman, 29, of Henrico County, is charged with making a materially false statement or representation regarding an offense involving international and domestic terrorism. Authorities said they built their case against Coffman with information from a series of undercover interviews and inflammatory social media posts.
Coffman first caught the attention of the FBI through her Facebook activity, according to a criminal complaint filed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The complaint details many of Coffman's controversial Facebook posts and interactions.
Investigators say that on June 23, using the name Ubeida Ametova (one of her many online aliases), Coffman listed her "work and education" on her Facebook account as "jihad for Allah's sake." Per the charges, she posted an image with the captions "We are all ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Sham" and also posted a picture of armed men and the black flag of ISIS, emblazoned with the words "Virtues of the Mujahideen."
Authorities say that on July 8, using a second Facebook account, Coffman reposted the same images from her first account in addition to a picture of the ISIS flag surrounded by praying men armed with AK-47s.
Coffman's Facebook activity prompted the FBI to obtain a search warrant for the account on August 4, leading investigators to discover a history of correspondence about ISIS. The criminal complaint details some of these exchanges, in which Coffman allegedly defends ISIS and rebukes those who criticize the terrorist group. She writes, "I know...it's all Zionist propaganda though! If we can rid the world of them...then the world will be a better and peaceful place." Additionally, investigators say that Coffman took credit for attempting to recruit her sister when she wrote, "she know ISIS because I told her about them and got her into liking them lol" and "my dad is a little angry because I got her into all this jihad stuff."
Investigators said they also discovered a man whom Coffman claimed was her husband. According to Facebook communications detailed in the complaint, this man told Coffman that he hoped their future son would be "Mujaheeden," and Coffman agreed, expressing her support for "whatever you want to do." Days later, as shown in the charges, Coffman told her "husband" that she hates gays and Zionists and "they should all die." On July 29, she warned him not to post pro-ISIS statuses on Facebook, and suggested that "the NSA has already seen it."
Coffman had multiple other Facebook accounts with a variety of user names, including Heather Coffman, Heather La'ahad, Heather Obeida La'ahad, Heather Ametova, and Ubeida Ametova, and which authorities say displayed varying degrees of radicalization. As of October 2, 2014, Coffman had set her location on one of the accounts to Hafsarjah, Idlib, Syria.
Coffman's social media behavior presented a number of red flags to authorities, but officials said the information gathered by an undercover FBI agent from a series of interviews helped lead to the charges. Starting in July, an agent posing as an ISIS sympathizer routinely met with Coffman and began to investigate her recruitment network.
After establishing a relationship, the undercover agent told Coffman about an associate who shared their views on Islam and was prepared to join the fight with ISIS in Syria. Per the complaint, Coffman revealed that she had experience connecting potential recruits with ISIS facilitators. She had begun to arrange travel to Syria for her "husband," the online associate investigators had discovered, but their relationship ended and he had decided not to follow through.
According to the criminal complaint, Coffman explained her frustration to the agent, saying, "I set him up with the brothers who gave him a contact name and number in Turkey to get him across the border when it was time for training...I spoke to another brother about it who said he was shocked he is sitting around waiting in Macedonia and he is going to call the emir and fix that and get him to Turkey...but my account was disabled so I couldn't follow through with that. But I think he was just joking us about going."
On October 19, the undercover agent told Coffman about plans to travel overseas, search for routes into Syria, and find an ISIS contact, to which Coffman replied, suggesting she could help find a contact and facilitate travel.
The undercover agent met with Coffman three times, on November 5, 6 and 7, according to the charges. During a recorded meeting in a hotel room on November 5, Coffman again offered to help find a contact and facilitate travel into Syria. After locating and vetting what she considered to be a legitimate facilitator, Coffman told the agent she would reach out and initiate the plans.
But on November 6, Coffman told the agent her contact had gone dark and that she was still waiting for a response. Then on November 7, Coffman met again with the agent, this time with a third unidentified associate, and asked the agent to propose a list of questions that she would relay to the facilitator, because, as Coffman explained, she wanted all communication with the facilitator to go through her. In this meeting, Coffman, the agent, and the unidentified third associate created a code language to discuss plans without tipping off law enforcement.
On November 13, two FBI agents met with Coffman at her work and conducted an interview, throughout which, according to investigators, Coffman "provided false, material information to the federal agents." Coffman said "we don't talk about things like that" when asked about their conversations regarding ISIS and al Qaeda, and denied that the undercover agent ever expressed support for ISIS or similar terrorist groups. The FBI agents told Coffman that lying to a federal agent is a crime, though Coffman said her account was truthful.
Coffman appeared in federal court in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday, and has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Coffman's lawyer did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.
CNN'S Greg Seaby contributed to this report
