FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Mississippi Newlyweds Planning Islamic State Honeymoon Denied Bail

Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 19, and Muhammad Dakhlalla, 22, were reportedly unwittingly emailing undercover FBI agents about their plans to travel to Syria via Turkey.
Photo via UGC/AP

Two young newlyweds from Mississippi who planned to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Syria while pretending to take a honeymoon were denied bail this week, after authorities arrested the pair as they headed to their local airport.

US Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander in Oxford, Mississippi ordered that Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 19, and Muhammad "Mo" Dakhlalla, 22, be remanded in prison Tuesday pending potential federal grand jury hearing charges.

Advertisement

"I just want to be there," Young is quoted as saying to undercover FBI agents.

Although the couple from Starkville, Mississippi have no prior criminal record, Alexander said she believes their inclination to participate in terrorist-related activity is "probably still there."

Related: American Dies Fighting Against Islamic State in Syria

The decision to deny bail was also based on written exchanges Young and Dakhlalla had unwittingly made to undercover FBI agents about their plans to travel to Syria via Turkey and Greece, and farewell letters written to relatives.

"Our story will be that we are newlyweds on our honeymoon," Young reportedly wrote in one email to an FBI agent acting as a militant recruiter, the New York Times reported.

In another email to undercover agents, she wrote, "We live in a small town with a very small airport that doesn't have much, if any, security… That's one US weaknesses — small towns' airports have poor funding and less educated staffs so it is easier to get through."

The FBI, which had been exchanging communications with Young and Dakhlalla since May, caught up with the couple on their way to Columbus, Mississippi's Golden Triangle Regional Airport in early August. Young subsequently told FBI agents that the pair married on June 6 and that she wanted to "raise little Dawlah cubs," according to court documents.

Dakhlalla's family is reportedly "absolutely stunned" by the arrests, the family's lawyer said. The 22-year-old has two older brothers and he was set to start school at Mississippi State University, the attorney said. The young man's father, Oda H. Dakhlalla, who reportedly comes from Bethlehem, in the West Bank, is an imam of the Islamic Center of Mississippi in Starkville.

Young is a psychology graduate, and the daughter of Leonce Young, who has been a member of the Vicksburg Police Department for 17 years. Young's parents declined to make a statement to reporters as they attended their daughter's bail hearing Tuesday.

The US Department of Justice said the couple's arrest is part of an ongoing effort to stop US citizens from traveling to Syria and Iraq to join the militant groups, most of whom are recruited online.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related: Three Brooklyn Men Arrested, Accused of Planning to Join Islamic State