Judge denies bond to ISIS suspects

As they sat just feet from each other in federal court in Oxford on Tuesday morning, Jaelyn Young and Muhammad Dakhlalla, accused of trying to flee the country and join ISIS, didn't even look at each other.

The prosecution posited that Young, 19, the daughter of a Vicksburg police officer, was allegedly the mastermind behind a plan to leave the United States and join the Islamic State.

Young and Dakhlalla, 22, were arrested at Golden Triangle Airport on Saturday. Investigators said they were bound for Atlanta, but eventually for Syria, where they hoped to join ISIS. They were both charged with allegedly conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Allan Alexander denied bond to both Young and Dakhlalla, of Starkville, in day two of their initial appearance Tuesday. The couple's attorneys had argued that they did not have the means to flee and did not pose a threat to others, but the prosecution argued that they did not need money or transportation to be able to pose a threat to society.

In the end, Alexander agreed. At least one letter left by Young told family members that "I made the contacts... I planned everything," and also included the statement, "We know I can't come back."

"Well she's not over there, and that's probably true, she probably couldn't have come back," Young's attorney, Ken Coughlin said. "But I don't think these letters change anything."

Court documents not only show that Young allegedly wanted to join ISIS, but that she rejoiced over the death of five service members in an attack in Chattanooga.

"What makes me feel better after just watching the news is that an akhi carried out an attack against US marines in TN," she wrote. "Alhamdulillah, the numbers of supporters are growing."

Alexander said that much of the evidence and information gathered that led to the arrest of the couple is still classified.

Federal agents began talking to Young online in May of 2015 when she expressed a desire on Twitter to travel to Syria in support of ISIS, and made several supportive statements about the designated foreign terrorist organization.

Both defendants subsequently expressed their readiness to travel overseas to join ISIS.

Prosecutors pointed out that while the defendants' lawyers argued that they had no military training or weapons, they were not harmless. The prosecution pointed out that ISIS calls on their followers to conduct lone wolf attacks with little to no training. Dhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber, was 19 and had no military training and made bombs out of pressure cookers from videos on YouTube, they contended, and ISIL has similar videos.

The criminal complaint states that around May 13, 2015, an individual on twitter later revealed to be Young had allegedly expressed a wish to travel to Syria to join ISIL. An FBI employee made contact and identified her through several forms of social media.

Around May 25, Young's Twitter account had a post that said, "The only thing keeping me away is $$$ but working all this overtime will be worth when I am finally there. #baqiya." Baqiya is a shortening of an Islamic term that means "remaining and expanding."

Young also told FBI employees that in the Muslim family she spends time with, many of them do not support the beliefs of ISIS and stated that she disagreed with them. She allegedly told the employee that she had a travel "brother" and that she would have to marry him in order to travel without an escort.

Dakhlalla is that partner, according to court papers. Young allegedly told the FBI that she and Dakhlalla would be traveling to Turkey and then to Syria, where they planned to join ISIS.

Authorities then made contact with Dakhlalla via social media and he told them he was proficient with computers, education, and media, then asked how he could help. Young later allegedly told the FBI that Dakhlalla would be "media or Mujahideen."

Young told authorities that she wanted to help give medical aid. Dakhlalla later allegedly told the FBI that he wanted to fight for ISIS.

"I want to be taught what it really means to have that heart in battle," he wrote, according to court documents.

Alexander told the couple that she felt like they had been raised in a sheltered manner that hadn't given them a real perspective on the kind of life they were asking for.

"I've had a lot of cases in court that were people who were desperate and born without having a chance of ever being anything other than defeated," she said. "I've seen people who were desperately mentally ill, and some where people were just mean.

"And I've seen a few cases where people were given every opportunity and blew it. These two bright young people with everything in the world to look forward to, citizens in the freest country in the world, with parents who sacrificed everything to make them the best life possible, and both sets of parents had the challenges that face minorities. They paved the way for these two, who have no criminal history. They are extremely bright, extremely well educated, extremely strong family networks... 

"I honestly believe the relative life of privilege has insulated them from the actual reality of what they were doing. I'm quite sure they would have found a life very different than what they thought."

The couple was turned over to the custody of the U.S. Marshals.