Philadelphia woman arrested for attempting to join ISIS

ISIS supporters
(Image credit: AP Photo, File)

A Philadelphia woman was arrested and charged with planning to go overseas to join the Islamic State on Friday, NBC News reports.

Keonna Thomas, 30, allegedly bought a plane ticket in late March, after researching travel routes to Turkey and communicating with an ISIS militant based in Syria.

"If we truly knew the realities ... we all would be rushing to join our brothers in the front lines pray ALLAH accept us as shuhada [martyrs]," Thomas allegedly wrote on her Twitter account.

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Newsweek reports that a criminal complaint filed on Friday says Thomas "knowingly attempted to travel overseas in order to join, fight with, and martyr herself on behalf of … a designated foreign terrorist organization."

Thomas' arrest comes just a day after federal authorities arrested two women in Queens, New York, who they say planned to detonate a bomb in the New York area after becoming radicalized by ISIS propaganda.

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Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.