Photo: Young Mississippi couple trying to travel abroad to join ISIS, arrested

Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 19, and Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, 22, were arrested on August 8 at Golden Triangle Regional Airport near Columbus, Mississippi. Both are charged with attempting and conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist group, ISIS.

According to news reports, a hearing on their detention began on Monday August 10th in Oxford. Young and Dakhlalla, both U.S. citizens confessed their plans to FBI agents after their arrest.


Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner likened them to Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying, "They don't need a gun to do harm. They don't need military training to do harm. What they need is a violent, extremist ideology, and that's exactly what they have espoused."

According to the government, FBI agents began interacting online with them in May about her desire to travel to Syria to join the group. In the course of the interaction, the couple revealed their plan to conduct a "nikkah,(Islamic marriage) so they could travel without a chaperone under Islamic law.

The FBI said Dakhlalla and Young both expressed impatience over getting passports. Dakhlalla even paid $340 to expedite passport processing. The couple also revealed their plan to work as a medic and in internet media for the Islamic State respectively.

 Image Credit: AP