WASHINGTON/KINGSTON — An American woman, Keonna Thomas from Philadelphia, arrested last month for trying to travel to Syria to join the militant group Islamic State was in touch with an Islamist preacher in Jamaica, a federal law enforcement official said.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the preacher is Abdullah al-Faisal, a Jamaican convert to Islam who was deported from Britain in 2007 after spending four years in prison there for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred.
