Young was apprehended along with Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A Mississippi teen and an older man were detained by federal authorities at a regional airport and charged with attempting to travel to Syria to join ISIS.
Authorities unsealed a criminal complaint against Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 19, and 22-year-old Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, another Mississippi resident, on Monday. The FBI says the couple planned for months to travel to Turkey in order to slip into Syria and join ISIS.
“The only thing keeping me away is $$$ but working all of this overtime will be worth [it] when I am finally there,” Young reportedly said online.
Young attended Mississippi State and wanted to become a doctor. During the hearing, authorities say she apparently offered to serve ISIS as a medic, reported the Vicksburg Post.
“I wish to be a mujahid akhi [holy warrior]. I am willing to fight. I want to be taught what it really means to have that heart in battle!” Dakhlalla allegedly told an undercover agent.
The FBI said local authorities waited until the couple had their passports and plane tickets to Turkey before picking them up in a small Mississippi airport, where they allegedly confessed their plans. The couple has been formally charged with attempting to support a terrorist organization.
Dennis Harmon, a local attorney representing Dakhlallah’s family and who has known them since Muhammad Dakhlallah was a child, told ABC News Dakhlallah’s parents are “pretty shook up” over their son’s arrest.
Oda Dakhlallah, Muhammad’s father, is a part-time imam at the local mosque in Starkville, but Harmon said he never preached anything close to extremist ideology.
“His father is somebody who teaches Islam as a religion of peace and that you treat Christians, like me and my wife, as the Quran teaches them that they’re people of the book, deserving of respect,” Harmon told ABC News. “I’m not too far from the family in being stunned by this.”
1 Comment
Glad they caught the terrorist qunt