No bail for couple accused of trying to join Islamic State

Oxford, Miss. • A young Mississippi couple who are charged with attempting to join the Islamic State were ordered held without bail Tuesday, pending federal grand jury action on the charges.

Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 20, and 22-year-old Muhammad "Mo" Dakhlalla, who were arrested at a Mississippi airport just before boarding a flight with tickets bound for Istanbul, went before U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander in Oxford on Tuesday.

Alexander denied bail, saying that even though the pair have never been in trouble with the law and have relatives willing to oversee their home confinement, she believed their desire to commit terrorism is "probably still there."

During the two-day hearing, prosecutors had urged Alexander to deny bail, citing statements Young and Dakhlalla made to undercover agents and handwritten farewell letters they left for their families saying they would never return.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner likened them to Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying that like him, they could commit violence with knives, vehicles or homemade weapons.

"They don't need a gun to do harm," Joyner said. "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."

FBI agents arrested them at the Golden Triangle Regional Airport Saturday morning, filing criminal charges that both were attempting and conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist group, a federal crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

An FBI agent's affidavit said both confessed to their plans after their arrest. Defense attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

The families of Young and Dakhlalla were still trying to come to grips with the accusations.

Dakhlalla's family is "absolutely stunned" by his arrest, said lawyer Dennis Harmon, who represents the family. He said Tuesday they have been cooperating with the FBI.

Dakhlalla's father, Oda H. Dakhlalla, is the longtime imam of the Islamic Center of Mississippi in Starkville, Harmon said, and has previously been reported to be a native of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Harmon said Dakhlalla was preparing to start graduate school at Mississippi State University.

Court papers say Young and Dakhlalla are U.S. citizens.

Young, originally from Vicksburg, Mississippi, was a 2013 honors graduate from Warren Central High School, The Vicksburg Post reported.

Young's father, Leonce Young, is a 17-year veteran of the Vicksburg Police Department. In court, prosecutors said Young had been trying to convert her sister to Islam as well.

The government says FBI agents began interacting online with Young in May about her desire to travel to Syria to join the group. It says her Twitter page said the only thing keeping her from traveling to Syria was her need to earn money.

"I just want to be there," she is quoted as saying. In later conversations peppered with Arabic phrases, she said she planned a "nikkah," or Islamic marriage, to Dakhlalla so they could travel without a chaperon under Islamic law. In June, the first FBI agent referred Young to a second agent posing as an Islamic State facilitator. The charging document says Young asked the second agent for help crossing from Turkey to Syria, saying, "We don't know Turkey at all very well [I haven't even traveled outside U.S. before.]"

Young touted her skills in math and chemistry and said she and Dakhlalla wanted to be medics treating the injured. Later, the charge says, she told the second FBI agent Dakhlalla could help with the Islamic State's Internet media, saying he "really wants to correct the falsehoods heard here" and the "U.S. media is all lies when regarding" the group.

In July, according to the charges, Dakhlalla said, "I am willing to fight" for the Islamic State.